Trébuchet
by Mardigny
Summary: Seto Kaiba always had trouble forgetting his past. Now he'll learn it runs in the family. OCs; understood Polarshipping; possibly character death.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Yugioh (and I actually don't think I would want to), but I reserve the right to write horrible fanfiction about it.

**AN**: This story was written a few months back as a stress-reliever for my 9 to 10 hour summer workdays. So except some (err, consistent) OOCness and general lapses in judgment. Tell me if you want me to continue what I started. The name of the story comes from the chess term in which a move by either side results in their loss of the game.

* * *

TRÉBUCHET

by ~Mardigny

* * *

"Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it. Those

who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the

faithless who know love's tragedies."

~ Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

* * *

**Chapter One**

6:47 AM, 23 November 2004

_Our corporation has seen unequalled achievements over the past six years. From scratch, we developed one of the most highly sought entertainment technologies in the world and have nearly tripled the value of our stocks since they began to decline in the early nineteen-nineties. Yet we cannot simply suggest that we have reached the limit; there is still work to be done, another barrier to be breached. _

_As I see it, the goals for the two-thousand-five year will_

Seto Kaiba frowned at the computer screen momentarily, thinking. Nothing came to him that could adequately continue the sentence; almost anything he thought of would simply sound more childish than the majority of projects he had already thrust into motion. The idea of some sort of school for teaching the Duel Monsters card game was absurd; the fact that an enormous entertainment corporation would begin it, build it, and run it, and not some small private enterprise with more time to focus their energies on the place, would be ridiculed out loud. Not just by the media, either. Kaiba was certain that the board of directors was going to have the desperate urge to laugh. They had bought his DuelDisk, hook, line, and sinker, yes, but only after he convinced them of its economic benefits to the company. He had even managed to convince them to build a god damn amusement park, using the company's faltering "reputation" as an excuse.

And what an excuse it was. Even if he had not taken over the company, the Kaiba Corporation would still be exceedingly rich, abnormally powerful and quite influential; but more than likely, it would probably be just about as corrupt as the lower echelons of the administration were now. They hadn't even wagged a finger at him when he had blown a hundred grand of the company's own funds on a Ferrari a few years ago that he hadn't even driven but away from the lot.

He sighed softly, letting his chesnut bangs shield his eyes from his work for a moment. Outside, he began to hear the tell-tale signs of Tokyo transitioning from its die-hard nighttime scene to the hectic morning struggle most of his employees would be facing over the next few hours – rushing to buy a coffee, rushing in front of cars trapped in gridlock. While his momentary worries were many, thankfully dealing with the morning scramble today was not one of them.

The document containing the goals for the next year, which Kaiba had been planning on giving to the vice president of development by seven-thirty to incorporate into a series of slides, went away with a mouse-click to reveal a pale blue home screen. There was nothing really open; just a minimized window containing his email. Upon maximizing it showed that he had received six more emails just in the few minutes he had started upon the transcript; one of them was from the development head herself, with "just a friendly reminder" to make sure she had what she needed.

With a bit of disgust, Kaiba pushed himself away from the cherry-wood desk, and wheeled around to glance out the large office window behind him, which looked across several blocks of the Tokyo suburb of Domino. He felt tired; for most people, this wouldn't come as a surprise having worked since eleven the previous night, but Kaiba was better than usual at being an insomniac. He had never been officially diagnosed, of course; actually, he had only been diagnosed with one thing in his life, although Kaiba knew enough to know he probably suffered from several other weird diseases that luckily didn't interfere with his day-to-day duties as chief executive officer of one of the largest national gaming companies in Japan. He smirked briefly; he always knew too much, it seemed, to be let alone.

His office phone rang then, unusually loud in the room otherwise blanketed by a silence, except for Kaiba's breathing. Upon picking it up, he found himself talking to his secretary, Hiroko, who was calling to see if he was at work that day. He glanced at the clock; it was a minute to seven.

"Why wouldn't I be at work?" Kaiba responded.

"It's a holiday, today, sir. I can't take off today because I needed to arrange a few things for you, so I might as well stay and get the full hours to make today count."

Labor Thanksgiving. That was right. So maybe he shouldn't have thought he could miss out on the bustle alone this morning; most people would be doing the same.

"Holiday or not, I'm as busy as you are," he replied with a non-intrusive tone. "So I think I'll be staying today too." Besides, it was stupid to have a day off on a Tuesday.

"Really, and with all of the hours you do work?" He heard laughter on the other end, mingled with the muffled noise coming from outside of his office door. "You do deserve a break, even if you call it a company retreat."

The suggestion intrigued him; it would be a good excuse to avoid having to give Hiroko any of the work he had been working on in his anxiety. But of course, he knew better than to simply back down out of his duties at this rate, even though with all likelihood he could live a middle-class lifestyle for the rest of his life if he dropped out with the money he had right now. Instead of accepting the offer, however, he simply snorted. And if he left than his brother wouldn't know where to find him when he came up later that day, and he didn't want to put him through any more trouble than having to fly all the way back to Japan just to see him over an American holiday.

"Do you have any updates from Mokuba?" he asked casually.

"Not since yesterday, sir, when he called saying he was getting on the plane later today. It's a bit of a trip, maybe seven hours or so. He should arrive around two; I'll forward you his 'I'm-safe' call as part of your speed-dial."

"Does that mean I should wear the coat with the speaker in the collar today?"

"It would make things a bit easier, yes, sir."

Kaiba frowned. He hadn't worn that dusty old thing in several months, since he had returned from Egypt. He hadn't even checked to see if it had come back from dry cleaning after being caked with the whirling sands. Some trip _that_ had been. At least the matter was easily passed off as a vacation.

"Nevermind. I'll bring my cell. What's on my schedule outside of doing that transcript?"

"You've done everything else over the past few hours, am I right, sir?" Hiroko hazarded the guesses with foolproof accuracy these days. She was older than he was – she was in her mid-fourties, or so he thought. He had never really thought to ask her because he had never really gone into a friendship with her, even though from her side of things that point of view could be challenged. He cringed at the thought that she might see herself as a mother figure.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Well, you have a luncheon today at eleven-thirty down at KaibaLand. Other than getting that transcript in for your speech coming up at the end of the week, you should be set to leave early around two PM today if everything goes well on Mokuba's end." Yeah, definite mother tone there.

"Thanks," Kaiba said curtly, and hung up.

Most of the morning went without anything too special going on. Practically nobody except Hiroko was at work that day, and she was more focused on watching the TV broadcast of the emperor's palace than she was at doing any paperwork she may have had. Today was quite the easy day. Kaiba couldn't think of anything really better to do than to finish the transcript, which he did by maybe eight (with a short explanatory message to the development vice-president, who responded around ten minutes later saying that she didn't need the transcript until tomorrow after all), and then did some research, browsing around Google for information on anything that really popped into his head. After a while Kaiba realized he wasn't really interested in anything he was typing; it was simply the illusion of doing something productive that was keeping him at his computer. The revelation startled him a bit; but, taking it casually in stride, he stood up, powered off his office computer, turned on his cell, and checked the time.

Two more hours until he would need to call the limousine. Damn. He needed to find something to do; it was one of his little habits. Spending idle time simply waiting for an appointment, a meeting, or for his brother Mokuba to show up drove him, quite simply, insane with some sort of unspecified fear. It was one of those little neurotic things Kaiba was well aware of but too nonchalant to care about trying to fix, either by himself (which he would prefer) or by visiting a psychiatrist. Kaiba instead found the time to check his text messages, one of which was from Mokuba.

_Hey bro in Japan. Flight was early. Coming home early maybe noon maybe earlier. Love you_

The text was sent around twenty minutes ago. Kaiba flirted with the idea of calling off the luncheon – it was just with some business partners, anyway, a routine 'meeting' simply placed in his own park just to flatter him. Instead, however, Kaiba found himself moving back towards his desk, turning his computer back on, and then checking his plans for the company's international move.

Originally, the plan had been to move into South Korea or China, which were far closer than the United States. Also, Kaiba had been concerned that the United States was filled with business rivals – which it was – and that KaibaCorp wouldn't be able to get off the ground if they overextended into California or Texas or, damn, even Washington. But Mokuba was going to Berkeley now, and Kaiba knew that his little brother would be able to run KaibaCorp in America once he was done with college, in three or so years. He had no doubt that Mokuba would instantly become a high-level administrator in KaibaCorp; he would make sure of it himself, because it suited himself to be near his brother.

He wondered when he was going to tell the board – and via them, inevitably, the media – about his wild idea. Another one of his wild ideas, to be precise; a different one from the 'Duelist School' he was working on right now. He supposed that growing international would more than likely be a more wise decision to present to the board than an earnest hope of some institution plucking children away from their parents so that they could become professionals in a card game. He shook his head; where did these ideas even _come _from, anyway?  
After around an hour and forty-five minutes of finalizing the plans, Kaiba hit _print_ on the Word document. Upon strolling back from the printer, several cubicles down outside his office, he glided over to his secretary, who was busy watching TV in the cubicle straight across from his office door and did not hear him approach.

"Hiroko."

She jumped a bit and hastily turned off the TV, turning to face him with a face that showed embarrassment beneath the hastily-constructed professional face she adopted in several seconds.

"Sir?"

"In two days, KaibaCorp is going to be making an announcement."

"…sir?"

"KaibaCorp is going international. I'm telling our business partners about it today at the luncheon, although they won't technically react to it until we've made it official."

Hiroko stared at him in stunned silence, and then began to laugh in disbelief.

"I don't have any notices about any of this, and none of the VPs have mentioned to me…do you even have-?"

Kaiba dropped the stack of papers, still warm, from his hand, and they neatly hit the desk in front of Hiroko with a strong _thud!_. He simply watched her impassively as she scrambled through them, incredulous, before she looked at him.

"But when did you decide-?"

At that moment, Kaiba's cell phone vibrated, cutting her off. He silenced her with a long, bony finger and flipped open the case of his Blackberry. He set it to speaker.

"What."

"Your helicopter has arrived, sir," came a gruff voice from the other end.

"…helicopter?"

"Limousine driver's off today, sir." Oh, yeah. Right.

"On my way."

After he had stowed the cell phone away again, he smirked slightly at his bewildered secretary.

"You know why I hired you. I want you to make sure that the VPs know that they have a meeting soon, and all of them need a copy of it. Start making calls to potential business partners. I'll be back." He began to walk away.

"But, sir, I thought you were going straight to-?"

"I'm picking Mokuba up and then coming back here to check up on you," he explained wryly as he disappeared from view, having rounded the wall that led into an adjacent corridor that led to the elevators.

Hiroko gawked at the spot where he had vanished for several seconds; then, composing herself, she muttered to herself, "and on my day off, no less," as her hand reached to pick up the television remote again.


	2. Chapter 2

**TaintedApple**: Thanks so much for the review, I'm glad you liked it. The first chapter was kind of boring, but now things start to pick up _just _a tad...

**AN**: I've had this chapter ready, and I decided I might as well post it. If Kaiba seems to be acting strangely here, don't worry, he is. His "asymptomatic panic attack" is a clue, too. I wonder what that could mean? (Clues are fun, aren't they, TaintedApple?) I'll probably edit this further someday.

* * *

Chapter 2

2:31 PM

Kaiba was flipping through his emails on his blackberry, not truly caring whether he had or had not already answered them. He wasn't responding to them; he was simply browsing, backtracking over the past week to waste some time as the chopper was making its way back to the Kaiba Mansion, which was in an outer area of Domino. Sometimes a new one would pop up; more often than not, it was from a partner company's president, saying how they had enjoyed the day's luncheon. He knew _that _was a lie, unless they really were the type that loved surprises.

In all honesty Kaiba didn't know why he hadn't managed to tell all of the business partners who had gathered in Kaibaland several hours ago that KaibaCorp was to announce their global intentions. He didn't think it was a mistake that he had skimmed over that 'detail'; but it was just extraneous, and it could be better left unsaid until the right moment came.

He let his mind wander off of work, and looked below him out of the helicopter window. Almost at once he recognized his own terraced lawn, acres wide and long; he must have staved off time quite well.

Anxiety built inside of him as the helicopter landed. It would be the first time he had seen Mokuba in several months. Despite his hard exterior, Kaiba knew that the only thing that he could not come to compromise on was his brother. His only brother. His only _relative_. He knew Mokuba was old enough to be on his own, but Kaiba had practically been Mokuba's parent. It was difficult to worry about him constantly, he had found out; he had attempted to push the feeling away to focus on work. For the most part he had been successful; but now, it was flooding back into him in waves with such an intensity it made Kaiba wonder if he was having some sort of asymptomatic panic attack. As the helicopter was landing, Kaiba barely noticed that his hand was wrapped around the locket around his neck until his pilot told him it was safe to get out. Upon realizing that he had a death grip around it, he loosened, but did not let it go. Instead, he opened it, pushing a small button on the bottom, and Mokuba's picture was revealed at age five. He smiled bitterly, then shut it again.

As Kaiba was giving his brief thanks and goodbye to the helicopter pilot outside, he heard a voice shout from a window above him. When he looked up, he saw him – Mokuba was waving from a third story window, gray eyes sparkling with glee. Almost as soon as Kaiba began to greet him, Mokuba spun away from the window and out of view. Mokuba must be just as excited as I am, he thought, almost bursting now.

Kaiba almost ran to the mansion's rear entry, the western hall, where he flung his briefcase to the floor and stood, blue eyes bright, looking down the hallway to the marble staircase that stood directly to his left. After a few seconds he heard footsteps; they were swift and urgent. Within ten seconds, Mokuba's crazy hairdo had appeared over the banister, his hand a foot or so ahead. After thirty, Mokuba himself was running at his brother, screaming, "Seto, Seto!"

They hugged tightly, and intensely. They told each other how they had missed one another, that they were worried, and how elated they were to see the other again. Kaiba was kneeling, almost trying to _push _his relief into Mokuba as they embraced. A few seconds later, they separated, and grinned. They were back together again.

"How's the Corp, big bro?" asked Mokuba.

"Fine, I guess. We're making some big plans soon, so we'll have to go back to my office later. Is that okay?"

Mokuba beamed. "Yeah, that's great! It's almost like I missed there as much as I missed _here!_"

Kaiba smiled. Mokuba _did _spend much of his early teenage years trapped in his office with him. God, those years were so weird… with all of the garbage that he was involved in… it was quite surprising that Kaiba even managed to stay the CEO with everything that had happened. It was also those years that had convinced him he was psychotic, too, but that was beside the point.

"And you?" Kaiba asked his little brother as they strolled away from the staircase, in towards the house itself. "How's America?"

"It's great!" Mokuba responded enthusiastically. "Berkeley's great. Everything is! The only trouble I have is making sure I can call you," he laughed.

"True," Kaiba said. "You're probably as busy as I am now."

"Not really," Mokuba explained as the two moved into a large living room-like area, complete with couches, a bookshelf, a small table, and a television. The two took a seat across from each other at the table.

"You see, Seto, I'm like you," Mokuba said. "I like to work and stuff. But lots of those people…they work, but they have a lot more fun too." He looked up. "It's not that bad. It's perfectly doable!"

"Maybe I am busier than you, then," Kaiba muttered.

"Yeah, I think so," Mokuba responded, and the two laughed slightly.

"So you're off for Thanksgiving, is that it?" Kaiba said, folding his hands on the table.

"Yeah. We get a week off. It's one of their longer holidays. And I'll be back in December, too; we get two weeks off."

Kaiba was a bit taken aback. "Are you _ever _in school?" he asked.

"Very funny," Mokuba responded, chuckling. "I am, big bro. Don't worry about me."

Kaiba changed a bit; he suddenly turned more pensive.

"What's wrong?"

It was as if Mokuba's voice snapped Kaiba back out of whatever reverie he had been in. "Nothing," he said casually, and then continued more forcefully, "so did you have anything in mind that you wanted to do today?"

"Actually, I do. Are you busy?"

Kaiba thought for a moment. He did have a few hours before he had told Hiroko that he would be returning to the office. So whatever Mokuba had in mind, it had to be quick.

You would think he would have jetlag or something, Kaiba thought to himself, and smiled ruefully.

"Remember, I have to be at work again by five."

It was Mokuba's turn to think, as if reconsidering his original plan. "How about a game?"

Kaiba snorted. "Mokuba, you know that I'm not a game person," he said. "And you know what I'm like when I'm in one."

Mokuba ignored the last comment. "Yes you are! You used to play duel monsters all the time! You can't say you don't like that game!"

Another valid point for the little Kaiba, thought the older one sardonically. He hadn't thought about Duel Monsters in quite some time. That was a lie. He thought about it constantly. He thought about the economic implications to the company about all of their technologies they were coming up with, most of them having to do with that particular game. In fact, the past few years had all been duel monsters – duel monsters tournaments, the Duel Disk, and now even the Duel Monsters Academy. It was like an estranged marriage – no matter how far away he might be, he was still married to the damn thing.

"I don't really feel like that right now," Kaiba sighed, brushing his hair. "I think about it enough already."

"Oh, yeah. I guess."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Kaiba noticed that Mokuba looked like he wanted to say something, but kept averting his eyes whenever Kaiba looked at him expecting him. His

mouth almost opened several times. Finally, Kaiba ventured out.

"What do you want to ask me?"

Mokuba looked up, startled.

"Oh, well, um, you see, bro, I, uh, I got something at the airport. It's a game. I wanted to play it. But I dunno if you'd want to now."

"Why wouldn't I?"

Mokuba looked up. "It…."

He didn't finish the sentence. Instead, he glanced down, then back up at Kaiba.

"Go and get it," Kaiba said, resigning. "I'm not really in the mood for anything, but I'm happy to see you, so I'll tag along."

Mokuba moved from cautious to exhilarated as if somehow someone had turned on a lightbulb. He jumped up and ran out out of the room, screaming "yes!" like a ten year old. Kaiba crossed his arms again, sighed, and closed his eyes. Guess some people don't grow up, he thought. How odd, considering some people don't have a childhood.

The thought almost scared Kaiba, and he opened his eyes. Damn it, why was his mind so incessant like that, always bringing up stuff he never wanted to be brought up… maybe it's the psychosis. Yes. Definitely it. The psychosis that started more than likely after Yugi defeated him in a duel six years ago and then flared up again when Ishizu –

_Stop it! _he growled, not even realizing that he had said it out loud. He looked around, and only a few seconds after the small outburst, Mokuba charged into the room, moving so quickly that the box he held above his head was unreadable. Kaiba mentally gave his thanks to Mokuba for stopping the train of thoughts, and smiled up at him.

"Okay, Seto," Mokuba said, grinding to a halt in front of his brother. He laid the box on the table somewhat haphazardly, falling on one side and then righting itself with a loud clap. It was perfectly square, Kaiba saw and had lots of squares, eight on the horizontal, eight on the vertical.

It was a chess board.

"…what?" Kaiba couldn't stop himself from saying.

Mokuba looked down. "Sorry, bro… you said I could. I thought about all the times we had back when we were little. We used to love this game."  
Yeah, back before Gozaburo adopted us.

Kaiba gripped his head with his hand, grunting in frustration. Mokuba grew wide-eyed.

"Seto…" It was all he could say.

After his hand had dropped from his face, Kaiba's face was pale and his eyes were flashing with some flood of emotions that Mokuba could read better than anyone else could. His older brother was trying to stop himself from getting angry again; he had made a promise to him, and couldn't get mad.

"I know, Seto. I know. Please, don't remember….that…. game. Just remember us. The way you always used to beat me, remember that?"

Kaiba glanced up, and nodded slightly. There was no way he could refuse Mokuba now. They had just come back together after months apart; he had said he wouldn't get angry. The only way out was to take it like a man and play a little…chess… with his brother. Try not to remember…

He spoke before his brain could complete another reference to his past. "Get the board ready."

"Do you wanna be white or black?"

"Don't care."

"I don't care either," Mokuba replied, and looked at the board questioningly, the board half opened to reveal that the playing field was a lid that stored the pieces deeper in the box. "Wanna decide with janken?"

"No," Kaiba responded.

After a few moments, Mokuba broke into an "eeny-meeny-mainy-mo" routine, and eventually decided that he himself would take black, and his older brother white. Kaiba watched as his brother set up the board, remembering almost perfectly where all of the pieces went.

"Why did you choose chess?" Kaiba blurted out. "Weren't there other games in the airport for you to choose from?"

Mokuba stopped where he was, Kaiba's queen floating in the air a few inches above her space on the board. Mokuba sighed, placed the piece down, and then sat back, eyes cast downwards.

"I don't know about you, Seto," Mokuba said cautiously. "But _I _had fun when we played that game."

The innocent remark struck a chord in Kaiba. He had tried to forget the fact that chess had ever been fun. After all, it was the chess game he played with…him… that had started him on the path to where he was now, on top of the entertainment world. He supposed he should be thankful for that one game, but instead only pure loathing resulted wherever he searched for sympathy. He decided that Mokuba, somehow, was right.

"Are you mad at me?" Kaiba looked up and saw Mokuba, worried, staring at him with a mix of empathy and fear. "Your face just got dark."

"I'm fine, Mokuba," Kaiba lied, switching his expression to the more neutral one of determination that people all over the world would recognize. Mokuba cracked a slight smile at his brother's answer, but of course Kaiba knew that Mokuba was aware of what this game had done to him as well, and what it meant to be playing again. Kaiba knew both of them were brimming with emotion, and were trying to keep the other one happy by playing their emotions off behind a poker face of enthusiasm. Just like always. Always concerned about the other one… always together… no matter what people said about how they didn't look or act alike. They were more of the same person than most people could dare to know.

It was almost like the secret knowledge, known to a true master of chess, that one of the most important pieces is the pawn, and the line-up of pawns by midgame determines the rest of the game.

Kaiba smirked, thought for a moment, and then placed his fingers on the king's pawn, calling out his move.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN**: Here's chapter three! Thanks to TaintedApple for continuing to review my stories. Yes, Mokuba does show up earlier on and he'll go away for a bit, but he's a bit more pivotal than you might realize. There are plenty of things to see here, too, although they're kind of obvious if you ask me.

... **AN#2**: The previous formatting sucked. Yes, I'm a n00b. Whee.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

3:03 PM

Mokuba sat for a few moments, thinking about his own opening move. With a shrug, he picked up his own king's pawn and moved it forward one space, as Kaiba had done.

"That's what I just did, Mokuba," Kaiba told him flatly, a fleeting grin on his lips.

"Well, the only person I ever really played with is you," Mokuba explained. "I know most of your moves. And because you always win, I'd thought I'd see how I'd do just copying you this time."

Kaiba chuckled a bit, and told Mokuba, "we'll see how far you can get with that." To his surprise the words sounded a bit like an echo to him, as if he had heard them before. The sensation never ceased to bother Kaiba, even if his pet diagnosis did that to him every now and again. But this time it wasn't as if it were some illusion that he had never experienced before; this was déjà vu.

He played the game through with Mokuba. At one point he made a mistake that eventually allowed Mokuba to gain a huge material advantage over him. Instead of fighting back, however, Kaiba simply decided to give the game to him, wryly thinking that it was about time he do so, anyway. By the time the game ended some forty minutes later, Kaiba had knocked his king over instead of letting Mokuba barrel roll him with the pieces he had developed.

"Wait, you're _giving up?_" Mokuba said, his voice cracking. "You're letting me win?"

Kaiba smirked, and his azure eyes flashed almost devilishly. He quoted his previous thoughts: "It's about time I let you win."

Kaiba's eyes glanced down at Mokuba's back row of pieces, and noticed in shock that none of the queen side pieces – the queen, the knight, the bishop, the rook, even the pawns – had been played. Mokuba caught his eye and laughed nervously. "I thought I would lose, so I only played off of one side, just for fun," he explained. "It's kind of weird, ain't it, Seto?"

Kaiba's brow furrowed considerably. "Yeah. It is." He looked again at Mokuba, whose mouth began to move. Instead of the voice coming from Mokuba, however, the voice he now heard echoed from somewhere in his head. And it wasn't Mokuba's voice at all, was it?

_Now you have to adopt us_.

"What did you say?" Kaiba asked, staring at Mokuba.

Mokuba spoke again, apparently repeating whatever he had said before; but again, Kaiba still heard the voice in his head, _now you have to adopt us_. Kaiba's eyes widened, and the pupils dilated.

Suddenly he felt like he was falling. From where, or to what, he didn't know, but while he was falling, his eyes were seeing something else, his ears were hearing something else –

_Pawn to E3!_

_ Pawn to E6!_

_ Pawn to E4!_

_ Hey, that's my move, kid!_

He saw himself, far younger. Back at the game with Gozaburo Kaiba, all the way in the past. At the game that determined their fate… it was like it was playing over again… he was back in 1990, Mokuba cowering by his right-hand shoulder, himself with a mind blissfully clear, confidence no longer an issue…

_Checkmate!_

_ What? How could I lose…_

Gozaburo had lost, and Kaiba had won, and then-

_Now you have to adopt us._

Kaiba and Gozaburo both reacted to the younger Kaiba; Kaiba in horror, and Gozaburo probably as well, but also with a strong streak of disbelief.

_You heard me. You promised!_

Kaiba became aware of screaming. He was spinning backwards, upwards, he didn't know in what direction anymore, and he began to feel his own throat making the sounds. The vision passed again, and he felt his eyes open.

He was on the floor. He was still in the living area, and Mokuba was standing over top of him, shouting, eyes full of tears; but Kaiba could not hear him at all. He saw Mokuba swaying; and then realized that everything was swaying. He tried to sit up, but he felt his arm give way as soon as he tried. Kaiba called out for Mokuba, but Mokuba didn't look; Kaiba had the suspicion he was only gasping or babbling or doing something else entirely incoherent. He closed his eyes in desperation, and everything began to melt away. With a last thought to Mokuba – and remembering his promise to return to work at five – he felt himself faint.

~X X X ~

Kaiba dreamt. It was a normal occurrence for him to dream; he had vivid dreams quite often, but never paid them any heed once he had awoken. This one was much simpler than the convoluted ones he normally had.

He found himself in a black void. Kaiba first thought of the Shadow Realm, but then recollected that that particular wacko experience of his had a purplish hue. This one was just black. He felt, despite the darkness, that there was direction to everything; as his eyes got used to the lack of light, something began to form in front of him, on the same level as his feet, several meters in front of him.

They looked like tiny crystals at first; they were the only source of light, and they were everywhere, shining brilliantly. But as he neared them, it was as if his presence snuffed them out; they grew dull, nearly invisible. Kaiba felt himself kneel down, and pick one up; it was in fact a large shard of glass. And then Kaiba was picking all of the glass shards up. He didn't know where he put them once they were picked up, he didn't know what happened to them, but he kept on moving through the darkness, picking up the pieces of shattered glass, some as large as the first, others small, but every single one was handled individually. Kaiba felt he had no control; he was helpless as his body moved around the darkness, searching for the broken pieces.

Kaiba didn't really know when he happened to awaken. He remembered the dream, quite surely; quite well enough to believe it had been real. He had simply slipped away from it and almost thought he had entered another dream before he opened his eyes and was practically blinded by the light. He began to hear things; the steady drip of something, a soft beeping sound, and murmuring voices. He closed his eyes again, and tried to move; he found that although he could, he felt something holding him down, as if he were in some sort of suit.

Gradually the voices grew more coherent, and Kaiba could open his eyes. So far as he could tell, he was in a hospital room; the dripping was coming from an IV that he couldn't see, and the beeping was the heart monitor. It wasn't a patient room, however, and Kaiba suddenly realized that his chest felt cold. And slimy. And it was crawling around… Kaiba tried to sit up, but then there was a flurry of activity and Kaiba found himself back where he was before. The weird feeling had stopped, however, which Kaiba found as at least one thing that he had solved. A figure stepped forward, and Kaiba squinted, trying to distinguish detail. It was humming softly.

"Who are you?" Kaiba asked.

The humming stopped abruptly. The figure moved closer, and he felt breathing on his ear.

"It's me, Seto," Mokuba said. "Can you hear me?"

"…Mokuba…"

Kaiba felt enormous relief to know Mokuba was there with him, wherever he was. Mokuba started humming, this time loudly, as he turned away. Two more figures approached; they both looked like doctors, seeing as they seemed to be mere streaks of white.

More humming between Mokuba and the doctors. Then one moved closer to Seto, hovering close to his ear, but unnervingly, as if he felt uncomfortable doing so. I feel the same way, Kaiba mused.

"Mr. Kaiba?"

"…what."

"I'm Dr. Kujaku. I'm afraid something's happened to you."

"….I noticed…"

He felt the doctor's breath tremble; he must have been laughing nervously.

"You've had a seizure."

The simple truth almost passed Kaiba by. He almost asked the doctor to repeat himself before he finally begun to understand. So that's what happened. A seizure. So there is something wrong with me.

Kaiba heard himself moan. He shut his eyes and then opened them again, straining to see better. If he had somehow been debilitated and couldn't run his company, that wouldn't really bother him, save for two reasons. For one, he would be stuck with nothing to do, and his psychosis would come back and itch at him until he went insane; and second of all, he wasn't quite ready to hand off KaibaCorp to Mokuba. Not that Mokuba wasn't going to be qualified, of course; Mokuba was in college, and Kaiba had never even been to one so far as he knew. It was only that at age twenty-four, he wasn't quite ready to give up his position as CEO. He had been planning on a good twenty to twenty-five more years, at least.

"…what's wrong with me?"

The other doctor stepped forward, in what seemed to Kaiba an attempt to stop the other doctor from repeating himself. "Nothing." It was a girl's voice. "You're fine, Kaiba."

"…the seizure…"

"Yes, you had a seizure. It was minor. It was probably stress-induced. You'll need to rest for about a week or so. Just check email or something every now and then. You'll be staying here and you'll be monitored."

Kaiba made some effort to get into a sitting position; these were futile, and doctors were quick to tell him that sitting probably wouldn't happen for two days.

Two days!

Kaiba groaned, but soon his groan had become a yell. Damn it, why was he hospitalized when he had one of KaibaCorp's most important maneuvers to set forth? Damn it. Damn it all! He didn't have time to be debilitated like some half-torn chew toy left to rot in some corner. He needed to get things done!

"Try to relax, bro." Mokuba again. His brother's voice sounded so warm and reassuring. "You'll be okay. I've talked with Hiroko; there is no meeting. She never scheduled it."

"Figures," Kaiba mumbled, causing Mokuba to laugh.

"Well, it's still _you _in there," Mokuba said, sounding relieved. "Don't worry, bro, I'll be here until the end of the week."

"…you're wasting your vacation…" Kaiba became aware of a nurse fidgeting with the machine to his right hand side. Mokuba looked at her, but nodded quickly and turned back to face Kaiba.

"What do you think I would do if I _had _school? Stay there studying all day when I knew you're in trouble?"

"True," Kaiba muttered. Quite suddenly, he felt something being pushed against his skin; the nurse was giving him something. When Kaiba opened his mouth to ask her what she thought she was doing, he instead was almost instantly knocked into a black sleep.

* * *

Okay, a few explanations:

- Kaiba has undergone a stress-induced tonic-clonic seizure. It starts with a simple partial seizure (SPS), which is his feelings of déjà vu; followed by development into a CPS (complex partial seizure), where Kaiba appears blank to Mokuba but hasn't fainted yet (this is when he hears the voice in his head instead of Mokuba's voice). These two things lead up to a tonic-clonic seizure (the classical type portrayed on all of the television shows), which is why Mokuba appears so then goes into a postictal sleep, which is a 5-30 minute non-responsive period following the clonic phase. It is in this phase that Kaiba has his dream. (As you can see, I try to keep as much accuracy as possible.)

- The moves I chose for the chess game are the literal ones shown in the anime, in the flashback where Seto faces Gozaburo. I basically analyzed the game-board screenshots. I am this nerdy. Next question.

- The true fans of Yugioh will recognize the doctor's last name. This isn't really a canon sibling, but I screwed the rules a bit. (Don't think I have any money, though, abridged series fans!)


	4. Chapter 4

Well, I haven't received any other reviews other than **TaintedApple**s', and she's been with me since literally the day I joined the site a few weeks ago. So I'm dedicating this chapter to two people, not just the one I had in mind: One is, of course, Tainted Apple for her support with my major fic (that *isn't* Target, no matter how much I may love that story), and also to **Mokuba Kaiba**. Why him? This chapter was written, _sans corrections_, on July 7 of this year - what would be, in this fiction, his twenty-fifth birthday. Here's to you, kid, err, man. o.O

**Disclaimer**: This story is mine, but all of the characters and concepts are not. My only write is the ability to churn out fiction that nobody ever reads.

**AN #2**: I've finally remembered to italicize in this chapter. So expect some more detail from now on. Eventually I'll go back and re-italicize everything but by that point nobody will care anymore, so... *shrugs*

* * *

Chapter 4

November 24, 2004, 10:19 AM – November 25th, 2004

Kaiba awoke, what seemed to him, quite late the next morning. He glanced at the clock; nineteen minutes after ten. Kaiba surveyed where he was, trying to remember everything coherently. He was still in the same room, and practically nothing about it had changed from the blurred memories he had of the previous day. Instead of what he normally felt upon waking up – a slight feeling of fatigue usually overwhelmed by a sense of duty, neatly aligned on the calendar on his blackberry – all he felt was a deep, overarching sadness of the sudden change of events.

He couldn't sit up, he couldn't stand. He couldn't orchestrate anything that needed to be done. Who would run the company? Kaiba knew the answer to that, of course; the VPs would act as some sort of board of their own to make joint decisions. He swore under his breath as he blinked. They'd never get _anything _done correctly without him.

In a chair across from the foot of his bed, Mokuba was sleeping, head propped in hand. Kaiba mused that Mokuba must have fallen asleep trying to keep himself awake. Mokuba had never had the 'talent' of being able to stay up long hours like his older brother.

After repeated whispers to try to wake him, Kaiba gave up, and pressed a long finger into the nurse call button on the side of his bed.

Early that afternoon Kaiba had refused to eat lunch despite Mokuba's insistence, citing the horrible breakfast food he had been forced to politely endure after requesting it upon his waking earlier that morning. Mokuba had provided him with an extra KaibaCorp laptop when he had awoken just after Kaiba had returned the food; whether it was Mokuba's was unknown to Kaiba. Now he sat, checking his email, enjoying more the newfound freedom of his hands than the actual reading of private matters. He still couldn't sit up.

To his lack of surprise there were no messages of pity, or "get well soon", outside of Hiroko, who might have just been trying to be polite. Practically nobody saw Kaiba actually in the office anyway except for people like Hiroko, or the bodyguards or the pilots or chauffeurs… Kaiba could swear more civilians saw him giving speeches than actual employees saw him in the halls. News about his hospitalization probably wouldn't reach the media until later that night, and only through them would the "seizure" become known…god, if it's not one thing it's another, Kaiba thought bitterly. And that, quite ironically, was usually the way he liked it.

A little after one-thirty Mokuba's cell phone rang. He mouthed the name _Hiroko _to Kaiba as he listened to what she was saying. When she hung up, Kaiba cleared his throat.

"Why did she call you?" Kaiba asked, clearly annoyed.

"Probably she didn't want to bother you. She doesn't really know much except you're in the hospital. For all she knows you're an imbecile."

Kaiba grunted and nodded his head towards his body, splayed under the covers. "Right now I'd agree with her."

Mokuba scoffed. "She didn't really even talk about you, actually," Mokuba said, scratching his head absentmindedly. "She just wanted to tell me something, and I can only guess she meant to tell me to forward it to you."

Kaiba closed his eyes to concentrate. "What was it?"

"Good news, actually," Mokuba said, with a weak smile.

"Doesn't really sound like it," Kaiba replied.

"Sorry. I'm just worried." Kaiba heard sounds that sounded like Mokuba getting up out of the chair.

"You remember that Ziegfried guy? The one with pink hair and all?" Mokuba asked.

Kaiba's brow furrowed, and he opened his eyes again to glare at Mokuba suspiciously.

"Unfortunately, I do," Kaiba muttered. "If he's gone the way of IIC and tried to buy some of my stock-"

"He doesn't even know yet, remember?" Mokuba pointed out. "He wouldn't know that you couldn't instantly threaten to take over his company. It hadn't been doing too well."

"What do you mean, _hadn't_?"

"Well, Seto, somebody bought it today."

A beat.

"Really? Who?" The development intrigued Kaiba. The Von Schroeder corporation, run by the elder son, Ziegfried von Schroeder, was a Bavarian entertainment company that always seemed to copy whatever Kaiba was doing; first it had tried to patent his hologram technology with the president of Industrial Illusions Company, Maximilian Crawford, before him, and then he hacked into KaibaCorp's mainframe during a duel monsters tournament held at the inception of KaibaLand a few years ago and almost completely ruined Kaiba's reputation. When push came to shove, the two weren't friends. But after von Schroeder lost the second time he became far more placid, and simply suffered the debt of the ailing corporation.

So somebody had gone and taken it over now.

His first guess was that Max Crawford himself, the snake, had gone out and ingested Schroeder Corp. Kaiba knew all to well that Max Crawford's main goal was to betray their so-called "business relations" that kept the duel monsters world running and take over KaibaCorp for himself. In one way Kaiba barely blamed him as Max Crawford was the game's inventor as well as the patent-holder for the hologram technology developed by KaibaCorp. But in too many other ways, Kaiba wouldn't let him through the lobby doors, even. They were on rocky ground ever since Max – or, as he was usually called, by his duel monsters tournament alias, Pegasus – had gone and tried to steal his soul with that –

Kaiba broke off his thought, and pinched his forehead with his forefingers.

"Who bought him out? Pegasus?"

Mokuba smiled wryly. "You'll never believe it."

"Just tell me."

"Disney, Seto. Disney!"

~ X X X ~

Kaiba watched the broadcast detailing the _disappearance _of the CEO of KaibaCorporation. He saw how the media had found that he had left the building earlier the previous day, planning on returning, but never came back. Kaiba almost spat when they compared the "disappearance" to several previous "vanishing acts" that the public had never really understood before, such as during the Duelist Kingdom tournament held by Mr. Crawford's Industrial Illusions Company four years previously, and the disappearance of the KaibaCorp dirigible where the Battle City Semifinals were being held three years ago. He turned off the TV and thrust the clicker on the stand next to him, smashing it down and knocking off the battery cover.

Mokuba was gone. He had gotten hungry and went out of the hospital to some restaurant down the road, and promised to get Seto something. Of course the nurses just thought Mokuba had left on his own devices and had brought dinner with them, a meal consisting of overly dry pork, salty green beans, a fleshy bite or two of pineapple in a plastic dish, and a small cube of cake that tasted like plastic. The meal sat practically untouched in a tray that had been placed over Kaiba's chest, where it lay in his vision no matter where he looked.

He found himself counting the tiny dots on the ceiling panels for what seemed like ages before the door opened and Mokuba moved in, holding two bags with grease stains on them.

"What are those?"

Mokuba shifted the bags around for his brother to see the labels on them. He had gone to some fast food place.

Kaiba sighed irritably, and covered his face with his left palm.

~ X X X ~

By noon on Thursday, Kaiba had already talked with Hiroko. Mokuba had told her when she called that morning that his brother wasn't brain damaged and could talk to her. Kaiba raised an eyebrow when Mokuba had laughed at her response and said "no"; it was probably an insult to his personality. Mokuba then gave the phone to Kaiba, who put it on speaker, as was his habit, and gave a gruff, "Hello."

"Mr. Kaiba, how are you?" the voice was bittersweet.

"In the hospital, how are you?"

A slight pause. "I'm…great, thanks. I enjoyed my holiday. Anyway, I wanted to tell you a few things that have been happening…"

"Mokuba's told me most of them," Kaiba responded shortly. "What's developed since last night?"

"Oh, um, okay, well, Pegasus called wanting to-"

"Pegasus?" Kaiba almost bolted up, but instead he felt his voice lower dangerously. "What the hell did he want?"

"Basically, he wanted to have a videochat with you because you're in the hospital," Hiroko responded. "It was about the recent development with von Schroeder Corp being taken over.

You've heard about that?"

"Yeah, I have. Did he specify a time?"

"Yes, actually. At about two-o-clock-ish."

Kaiba's eyes fluttered up to the clock on the wall above him. One-thirty. Damn.

"I don't even have anything to videochat with," Kaiba snarled at nobody in particular.

"Oh, well… nice talking to you, Mr. Kaiba. Could I speak to Mokuba again…?"

"You're on speaker. Anything you can tell him you can tell me."

Silence from the other end. Then, "I guess. Mokuba, when are you leaving again?"

"Two or three more days," Mokuba said loudly from the other end of the room to make sure that his voiced got picked up. "Why?"

"I wanted to make sure everything was set with the return trip. It's awfully boring without your brother around."

Mokuba and Kaiba glanced at each other, and then Kaiba said, "I did the tickets myself a month or so ago. You should be getting stuff ready for our announcement."

Again, a silence, and then a shuffling noise. Then the word "yes" came into the phone, as if had set the phone down and were just picking it back up again. "Yes, I have everything. How much do you want me to do?"

Kaiba considered this. If he asked Hiroko to forward his proclamation to the other VPs as well as the board, they'd all just slough it off as some seizure-induced fantasy that wasn't too far off of his normally bizarre ideas. Kaiba recognized that any idea forwarded now, with most people aware that he was in bed, might have to wait until he could at least stand up.

"Nevermind." And with that, Kaiba turned off the phone.

Mokuba looked at Kaiba worriedly. "What're you going to do, Seto? About the conference with Pegasus?"

Kaiba frowned. He pressed the nurse call button on the side of his bed.

"Mokuba, do you have any work to do over the break?"

Mokuba shook his head. "I did it all on the plane over. Nothing was too hard. Mostly just reading stuff."

"Alright then. Just make sure Pegasus doesn't see you during the video conference."

Mokuba looked hurt. "Why?"

"He's already loony enough talking with one Kaiba," Kaiba responded bitterly. "He doesn't need both of us in one place."

~ X X X ~

It was by a sheer miracle that there happened to be some sort of video-conferencing machine on wheels that was available somewhere on a different floor, in a different building. When a nurse had asked Kaiba why on earth he was talking to someone via a video conference in a state like the one he was in, Kaiba snapped that she should talk to his secretary. Kaiba had then asked to be able to at least sit up if he were going to be conducting business. While at least one nurse had flatly declined, the other brought in the two doctors from two days before to talk it over with him. It took her around ten minutes. When they entered, the taller, male doctor was explaining to the other one that his sister's birthday had just occurred and that she expected to become engaged any day now.

"I don't have much time," Kaiba explained as the two entered, interrupting their conversation. "I'm having a conference in twenty minutes and I need your opinion; can I or can I not sit up?"

The two looked at each other. The doctor that Kaiba remembered as Dr. Kujaku, cleared his throat, and said, "this might take a bit of work on your part…we're not entirely sure yet."

"I feel fine," Kaiba replied without thinking. He knew that didn't really mean much; you didn't taste anything while taking arsenic, for example.

"More than likely you do," said Dr. Kujaku wearily, moving over to stand closer to the head of Kaiba's bed. Kaiba looked up at him. He looked like someone, but he couldn't remember who exactly.

"However, you really should wait until tomorrow to sit up, technically. But if you're already well enough to be on business, well, I suppose we could see what happened."

The woman doctor behind him coughed softly, as if in protest. Dr. Kujaku, apparently the more senior of the doctors, ignored her and bent down, fidgeting with some levers under the bed.

Then it began to move, and Kaiba began to feel slightly dizzy as he felt his upper body elevate.

"How do you feel?" Kujaku asked as the bed was still rising.

"Fine," Kaiba said, not taking the dizziness into account.

"Good. How much time do you have?"

"Fifteen minutes."

"Alright. You shouldn't be dizzy by then," Kujaku said with a knowing smile. "Good luck."

As he turned his back and motioned with the other doctor to leave, she scowled behind his back. Kaiba raised an eyebrow, then turned his head away. "I don't need luck," Kaiba muttered.

~ X X X ~

The phone on the video conference mechanism actually rang early, at one fifty-two. Kaiba asked Mokuba to roll the device over to him so he 'could speak with Pegasus personally'; Kaiba also wanted to make sure that the man on the other side of the screen wouldn't be able to see too much of the hospital room or Mokuba himself, but he didn't tell Mokuba that again.

Kaiba's right hand lifted up the receiver as the screen flickered on. In the same red costume, Pegasus was wearing his customary kiddish grin, a brown eye sparkling and the other hidden behind the veil of his long, white hair. Behind him Kaiba saw that Pegasus must have been having a late meal; there was an open platter of cheese and crackers visible.

"Kaiba boy!" yelled Pegasus in delight. "I thought something had happened to you!"

"Something did," murmured Kaiba.

"Dear, dear, Kaiba boy, what can I do for you? Give you flowers? Read you a story?"

"Cut it out, Pegasus," Kaiba snapped. "Just because you happen to know I'm not in my office doesn't mean my head isn't screwed on right."

Pegasus adopted his sarcastically hurt expression, glee dancing in his one visible eye. "But of course. We are but men of business, are we not?"

Kaiba didn't bother responding to the statement. "You wanted something."

Pegasus nodded. "You see, Kaiba boy, your rival von Schroeder has been, shall we say-"

"He was bought out. I _know_."

"Good!" Pegasus laughed, never seeming to take real offense at Kaiba's attempt at playing the mean guy. "Well, don't take this the wrong way, Kaiba boy, but I was planning to take it over myself. I'm a bit sad, really."

"Figures," Kaiba said under his breath, but he didn't say anything loud enough for Pegasus to hear.

"Anyway, the point I'm bothering you in this _time _of _crisis _in your life was to verify who bought them out?"

"Disney," Kaiba replied without hesitation.

"So you _have _heard," Pegasus almost whined. "Dear me, I don't know how my company could possibly deal with a corporation of that caliber!"

"Pegasus, just tell me what you want already. I'm not ill enough to play your little games."

Pegasus' brow darkened.

"Fine, then. The reason I'm calling you is to inform you that Industrial Illusions, which is already an international company, will be moving further so. You know I'm calling you late here in San Francisco, Kaiba Boy, and I'm already used to such matters. I was going to ask you if you were doing the same."

Kaiba's lip curled upwards with a smug expression. "Congratulations, Pegasus," he almost spat. "Trust me, whenever I get out of this joint, KaibaCorp _will _be 'doing the same.'"

"So is that a challenge I see coming?" Pegasus was back to his abnormally coy 'normal' self again. "Well, Kaiba-boy, you'd better work fast. Von Schroeder's company is under the most powerful entertainment name in the world now. Both of us will have to, excuse me, step up our game."

Kaiba understood the reference to duel monsters, and he also understood the reference to several events over the past few years that had to be resolved with, what in his view, was indeed a children's card game.

"I plan to," Kaiba replied.

Pegasus sneered. "By the way, Kaiba, I've already talked with the head of Disneyland Tokyo. They're the ones that will be most directly involved with both me and with you."

"And?"

"I'm pretty sure she wants to talk to you, as well, Kaiba, whenever you aren't shirking your time in bed."

Kaiba growled while Pegasus could barely contain his mirth at his own childish humor. Kaiba almost felt like scolding him, but unlike Mokuba, Pegasus was a grown man that could be quite potent if perturbed, and had no qualms about doing anything he wished. Including taking over _his _company…

"So are we through yet?"

Pegasus blinked. "I suppose we can be. Don't you enjoy my company, Kaiba-boy?"

"Not particularly."

"Then I best be on my way," Pegasus said with a slight shrug. Then the smile disappeared and the more sinister face returned. "You'd better watch your back, Kaiba."

"You'd better watch your head."

Pegasus gritted his teeth in frustration, and was seemingly reaching to turn off the connection when Kaiba beat him to it.

* * *

I am *so* going to be booted off the site for this chapter . Read while it lasts, paizanos. But... I bet EVERYONE was waiting for Pegasus to show up, eh? *crickets* And EVERYONE loves Hiroko, right? *crickets*

Anyway, wow, lots of subsections this time. Anyone have any ideas as to where this is headed (read: constructive reviews?) As much as I love hearing from Apple some other input would be . Word.


	5. Chapter 5

This chapter is quite a bit shorter than Chapter 4, but somehow I think it's just as important. That's a pretty big hint.

Introducing the character of Ms. Hermand! She'll be pretty important, so keep your eyes on her. And as for Hiroko, I don't like her too much, so she's on the way out, sooner or later. But anyway, I'll shut up now.

* * *

Chapter 5

November 28th, 2004, 6:57 PM

Kaiba was discharged early on Sunday, with seemingly no ill side effects from his episode Tuesday afternoon. The doctors had stuck by their decision that he had suffered through a seizure that had come across by stress, but Kaiba didn't really believe it. It wasn't like he had been in a meeting or yelling at techies when it occurred; he was simply reliving the past. It was always hard for him to even think about it, but the fact it could give him a seizure was almost frightening.

Most of his thoughts, however, were focused on the short "teleconference" with Max Pegasus a few days before. Despite Pegasus' lackadaisical manner he knew full well that the man whom he used to consider his business partner – even a friend – was simply rubbing in his face that Industrial Illusions was reacting faster to the takeover of von Schroeder Corporation than Kaiba, because he was "too stressed" to handle it. Kaiba would have been vehemently angered by, but not surprised if, Pegasus had waved one of his favorite comic book characters at the screen and declared in a high-pitched voice, _catch me if you can! _

Kaiba was in the living room of the Kaiba Mansion, downstairs, and a room that was so large even the enormous couch on which Kaiba sat, the coffee table where his feet were laying, and the variety of television screens and bookcases that surrounded the outer walls of the room couldn't contain a feeling of vast emptiness. Mokuba had always liked the very slight echo in the room, and it helped Kaiba when he had to make calls from "home", as he was now.

He was calling Hiroko, at home, conducting business even when Dr. Kujaku and his spiteful assistant had told him to take it easy until Tuesday, a week after the episode. After a few rings, he heard someone pick up on the other end.

"Hiroko, it's me. When can you arrange a meeting with the head of Disneyland Tokyo?"

"…Mr. Kaiba!" Hiroko sounded flustered. "I'm sorry, sir, this is a bad time…"

"It's not a very long answer, is it?" he growled.

"Um, well, to tell you the truth there's so much to be done this coming week I can't remember. Maybe I already did. Can I call you back? I'm-"

Kaiba hung up on her, and placed the blackberry on the table, thinking. Guess he would have to just find out for himself if she did or didn't, wouldn't he?

~ X X X ~

Kaiba's phone rang just as the helicopter was landing at KaibaCorp headquarters the next morning. He answered it to hear an unfamiliar voice, a woman's, addressing him with a heavily foreign accent.

"Am I speaking to a Mr. Kaiba?"

"Yes," Kaiba replied as he nodded at the pilot, and began to walk off of the platform.

"Mr. Kaiba, this is Ms. Hermand, the director of Disneyland Tokyo?"

Kaiba inhaled sharply. This was interesting.

"How did you get my number?"

"Your secretary gave it to me. Anyway, were you aware of our meeting this morning?"

"Am I late or something?"

"No, not yet. You still have around ten minutes. But I thought I'd call and check, seeing as, well, you know…"

"I'm on my way. Where are you?"

"Your office, actually. It's quite nice."

Kaiba scoffed, and hung up. He turned his attention to emailing Hiroko.

_When the hell did that lady get my number_?

Kaiba didn't get a response until he was walking down the hall to the office and Hiroko was in view. He read it quickly, and decided to respond in person.

_The lady in your office has your number?_

He almost felt like shouting. Damn, if she didn't actually do the work, Hiroko might have to be fired one of these days. Or maybe she was always this incompetent but Kaiba had always been too busy or too…unavailable…to notice.

"Hiroko, what the hell do you mean? You don't _know_?"

She turned and faced him, surprised to see him, but not surprised by the tone. She gathered herself up quickly.

"Why the hell is she here? When did this appointment get made?"

"I made it last night, like you told me to," she said with a neutral expression. Her fingers were fidgeting with something Kaiba wasn't bothered to look at.

"You could have at least told me it was at seven-thirty in the morning on the day _after _I was discharged."

She simply smiled. "Sorry!" she said, almost innocently.

Kaiba grunted and opened his office door. Hiroko saw the foreign lady turn around when the door slammed loudly.

_I have to stop being such a bitch_, she mused ruefully, smiling, knowing that more than likely _that _was never going to happen.

~ X X X ~

Kaiba mentally fired Hiroko as the door slammed shut. He forced a smile. "You must be the lady from Disneyland Tokyo."

She smiled back at him. She had auburn hair and startling blue eyes, reminding him of his own physical features slightly. "I am," she answered, her words pronounced thickly and deliberately.

"Nice to meet you. Sit down."

"It would be my pleasure."

"Where are you from?" Kaiba asked as she took a seat opposite him at his desk.

"France," she replied coolly. "I got a promotion to come here several months ago. But that's not what we're here to discuss."

"True. So you took over von Schroeder Corp."

"Yes," she said, her eyes scanning him, as if searching for information, a process Kaiba believed she must have done tens of times beforehand. "Disney usually would not be interested in such technologies as von Schroeder's, or in that case your own, but I think the move was wise."

Kaiba frowned. "Whose idea was this?"

"My own," she responded. She smiled faintly, but her eyes were flaring with a brightness that kept Kaiba alert to a possible deal on its way. "And now we must make sure that von Schroeder Corp's previous allies do not see this development as a threat."

"I almost am happy about it," Kaiba admitted, crossing his hands in front of him. "You may or may not know that Zigfried and I were not on the best of terms."

"I did not," she answered equally, and then her brow furrowed. "You know him personally, then; and not through somebody else?"

"Yes."

They sat in silence for a moment, each looking at the other one. It was Ms. Hermand who broke the silence.

"Would it be wrong to say that my presence is almost threatening to you?"

Kaiba looked up, intrigued slightly. "Not at this point," he said, "but if you take von Schroeder Corp's position with us as well, that won't make us any more friendly."

"I see." Ms. Hermand pursed her lips. "Then we might as well start a new partnership."

"What?" Kaiba said it without even thinking.

"It surprises you, Mr. Kaiba? Though we took over von Schroeder Corp, we want to begin on positive terms with everyone they had relations with. Start from scratch. If they were your rivals, then we will be your friends."

Kaiba considered the proposition for a moment. Kaiba knew intuitively that Disney was not known for having complete employee satisfaction, and so far as Kaiba knew their monopoly on their portions of the entertainment industry was absolute. It was dangerous territory to try any sort of agreement.

"Do you want a definitive answer right away?" Kaiba asked her, his hand moving to rub his chin in thought.

"The end of the week would be convenient for me," Ms. Hermand replied, and she pushed back her chair, as if readying herself to leave.

"Before you go," Kaiba said, "there is a question I must ask of you."

"Please," Ms. Hermand said, and she adopted a smile more than likely as fake as her attitude.

"What have you already decided with Maximilian Crawford, president of Industrial Illusions?"

She looked taken aback at the question; apparently, she had not expected Kaiba to have guessed she had talked to Maximilian beforehand.

"That I needed to talk to you before we could decide anything," she said calmly. "But so far as I can tell I need more time on your part before Disney can reach any sort of agreement with either of you."

Kaiba nodded. "Don't take this as a negative. I'm sure by Friday would could meet again and actually come up with something…productive."

Her eyes flashed, almost with a spark of recognition, at the words. "Quite like your health. Good day, Mr. Kaiba."

And with that, she got up and left without a single glance behind her. Kaiba frowned again at the unnecessary reference to the previous week, and then turned to gaze out the window to think things through. It took him over twenty minutes to remember Hiroko's impertinence; but the current situation drowned her out for the time being.

~ X X X ~

As the foreign woman glided by her cubicle, Hiroko glanced upwards; daring not reveal that she was watching her pass. Ms. Hermand's expression was neutral; there was not the slightest hint of agitation, nor any sign of altercation, with her boss. She reached for the phone, then glanced down at the number written hastily on a yellow sticky note, half hidden under various other papers that cluttered her work space. She dialed the number, then, looking around as if afraid people were going to find her in the act of wrongdoing, held the phone to her ear.

A few rings. Then a male voice answered, "Industrial Illusions, this is Honda. How may I help you?"

Hiroko cupped her hand over her mouth and kept her eyes fixed on Kaiba's office door. "This is Tanaka Hiroko. Forward me to Croquet."

There was a shuffling on the other side, and then a click as the call was forwarded. Within a few seconds another male voice, this one more gruff, answered.

"I need to speak to Pegasus," Hiroko said rapidly. "He wants me to tell him something."

"Who is this?"

Hiroko thought for a moment, and then said, "tell him it's his connection to Kaiba."

"Right away," Croquet murmured, and there was more shuffling. She vaguely heard Croquet call out "Mr. Pegasus!", and it was a few more seconds before she heard a tired Max Crawford respond.

"It's me," she replied softly. "Kaiba met with her."

"Good," Pegasus yawned. There was a scratching noise. "Dear me, it's quite late here. Do you mind if we talk later today, in your time?"

"Not…really," Hiroko hesitated. "But I don't think Disney and KaibaCorp are off the way you wanted them to be."

"I didn't expect them to, actually, on only the _first _meeting," Pegasus responded. "Anyway, thanks for the help today. You should be getting my package soon!"

A click. Hiroko put the phone back down, and almost smiled in her deviousness, but inside her, she was a bit worried. If Pegasus didn't pull through? Or his plan didn't work and she was found out…?

Her phone rang again, and if the caller ID was correct, it was Kaiba.

I'll worry about him later, Hiroko thought, and she reached to pull the receiver towards her.

* * *

So, is this beginning to make sense? The story is more of a mystery than you might have first thought it would be. Which is of course, the point. So what do you think the blurb that introduced the story means? Mull over it, I don't find it too difficult to make the jump. But then again, I wrote it! :D


	6. Chapter 6

I just realized, I've been underlining the chapter titles instead of emboldening them. Oh well. But yeah, chapter six yada yada. By the way, my formatting was screwy for the previous three chapters and I only JUST noticed. Sorry for the searing pain.

* * *

Chapter 6

Wednesday, December 1st, 2004, 3:34 AM

Mokuba had left a few minutes before, around the same time Kaiba had woken himself up. After a quick goodbye, Mokuba cited how early his flight was and that he needed to get going. With a quick hug, Mokuba was in a KaibaCorp limo, heading to the airport somewhere in the darkness.

Kaiba himself would not be heading to the office for another few hours. He instead moved back into the empty living area and switched on the light, and reacted momentarily to the sudden brightness. After moving to the couch, Kaiba switched the laptop laying on the table on and personally scheduled a board meeting at noon that day.

Kaiba wasn't too worried about Ms. Hermand, or Disney, in the 'personal' sense; but in the abstract one. He wondered why she had been quite so surprised to hear that Kaiba knew that she had met with Pegasus; it was as if Pegasus had called Kaiba surreptitiously, behind her back. More than likely the connection between the two companies, despite the rivalry between him and the clown on the other side, was what actually had caused her to be surprised; despite their animosity, Kaiba and Pegasus had frequent, although luckily impersonal, contact. The few times a year they met in person were mostly torturous.

Kaiba planned to officially announce KaibaCorp's plan to extend outside of Japan at the board meeting. He decided that it would be a better speech to make, coming back from the hospital and in light of current events, than the one he had been planning on scheduling for the 2nd – the next day – involving a duel academy to be built. It was now that he mentally shoved that plan aside; it would probably be months, even years, before Kaiba could realistically focus on the, well, unrealistic, again.

Going international was the first rational challenge that Kaiba had had as the chief executive officer of KaibaCorp since he first completely reversed the company from a failing weapons company to a major competitor in the gaming industry. He thought briefly about how he would start the outline he would memorize later, and then suddenly remembered the goals outline that the vice president of development had delayed until later.

Kaiba emailed her quickly, saying that if she had wanted the transcript now that he was back, it would have to wait; he had thought of some changes and would be reviewing them with the board that day. The entire thing seemed kind of rushed, even to Kaiba; but of course it was the challenge that made Kaiba simply smirk in self-satisfaction, send the message he had typed, and open the word document in question on his laptop, now fully loaded.

He flitted back over what he had written just over a week ago.

_Our corporation has seen unequalled achievements over the past six years. From scratch, we developed one of the most highly sought entertainment technologies in the world and have nearly tripled the value of our stocks since they began to decline in the early nineteen-nineties. Yet we cannot simply suggest that we have reached the limit; there is still work to be done, another barrier to be breached. _

_As I see it, the goals for the two-thousand-five year will_

Kaiba backspaced through the last part of the paragraph he had managed to write, and filled it in with some ambiguous statements to be interpreted in the opening statement of the second. It now read

_Our corporation has seen unequalled achievements over the past six years. From scratch, we developed one of the most highly sought entertainment technologies in the world and have nearly tripled the value of our stocks since they began to decline in the early nineteen-nineties. Yet we cannot simply suggest that we have reached the limit; there is still work to be done, another barrier to be breached, and one that so far KaibaCorp has only scratched – the one barely seen when we extended KaibaLand to California. _

_As I see it, the goals for the two-thousand-five year will be to extend KaibaCorp's sphere of influence to encompass a global audience. Already, Industrial Illusions Company, our long-time partner and main distributor of our merchandise, has announced their own intentions to spread. With the recent purchase of competitor Von Schroeder Corporation by the worldwide entertainment magnate Walt Disney Company, KaibaCorp must aspire not just to equal, but to surpass, the new challenge that has been laid in front of us over the past few days (November 23 – November 27). There are several ways in which KaibaCorp will begin to move forward with this ideal._

Kaiba then continued on, barely even bothering to re-read what he had written, with several strategies he came up with off of the top of his head, but that he was rather sure would hold up under the board's scrutiny. In all, the entire finished transcript took him until around four-thirty. When he was done, he simply saved it and sent it to his own email so it could be accessed on his blackberry. He then shut his computer off, unlocked the blackberry's keypad, and then forwarded the document off to the VP of development for her 'consideration'. Of course, she was fast asleep and probably wouldn't get around to reading it until after the board meeting was through.

He browsed through what else he had to do. Kaiba glanced over the figures that had recently been filed by KaibaLand – both in Domino, and in San Fransisco – for revenue from the past month. Kaiba was pleased to see that both were experiencing solid growth; he could only expect that it would hold through the rest of the quarter, set to end in January, keeping in mind that the high season was about to begin.

A text appeared. Mokuba was on the plane and was on the runway. It was a quick goodbye message, and thank you. Kaiba responded

_Sorry about what happened. Didn't mean for it to turn out like it did. Glad you were here. Love you, Seto_

Mokuba wouldn't read the message for quite some time, possibly tomorrow. Kaiba got up and stretched, and decided to walk around the mansion a little bit to alleviate the sense of impending boredom.

~ X X X ~

The members of the board were mumbling amongst themselves as they were filing out of the board room. As usual, Kaiba stayed behind, watching them. Despite what he believed they thought, he did not stay to disconcert them; rather, he preferred to mentally go over what had happened in the meeting in the room in which it occurred, as a sort of mental aid to filing the buzz of information from the past few hours.

The board meeting had gone somewhat rocky, but not quite badly. The first speaker wasted everyone's time by welcoming Kaiba back, which Kaiba had to thank him for through clenched teeth before insisting that they move on. They flirted with Kaibaland for a while, and then by a quarter to one they all were discussing the takeover of Schroeder Corp. Kaiba took the opportunity to announce his plans.

After Kaiba finished his presentation, which took maybe less than ten minutes, a heated discussion followed between the various board members while Kaiba sat, arms crossed, at the head of the table, more an observer to a bunch of schoolchildren earnestly working on a project. By two they had agreed that something had to be done internationally; with this, they agreed with Kaiba. As for the specific goals he had set in mind, most had some other ideas that Kaiba had to spend time shooting down with great lack of interest. The major one had to do with KaibaCorp's budget, which despite the company's growth had the annoying of habit of staying just out of reach of being anything convenient for a massive new project on the scale of the DuelDisk back in 1999 or 2000. Kaiba cited this small piece of information, and then continued by bringing up the revenue from the theme parks again and suggesting that some of their revenue be put into investing outwards and finding new cities to put headquarters. Kaiba continued, barely realizing he was making a speech out of his response, by saying how multiple headquarters would make it far easier to have KaibaCorp itself control their own technology and have to rely less on Industrial Illusions Corporation.

Kaiba's point worked, and it was now ten minutes after three. He had two more meetings to go to that were obligatory, but the rest of the time could be spent idly calculating figures, checking voicemail, and giving blank cards to Hiroko to fill out as thank you letters. As Kaiba stood to leave the boardroom, he began thinking about the media sensation that was sure to happen by tomorrow. Grimly he could imagine the headline, "Japan's Entertainment Companies Clawing to Go International." He'd have to deal with not only more internal pressure, but external as well. This week was going to be as tough as hell.

~ X X X ~

By six people were leaving the KaibaCorp office building; at seven, Hiroko left, and Kaiba was left alone in his office for a few hours. He believed he could thrive in the stress that had been placed upon him now. Both of the people he had met with had asked about the rumors concerning Kaiba's announcement to go international, and Kaiba confirmed them before having to answer petty questions about how their positions would not, in theory, change, unless they decided to pack up and move to whatever country they chose to go to. Kaiba himself had been thinking about where KaibaCorp would extend; his first thought had been the United States and China. By the United States he meant two places; the west coast, in San Fransisco, and some place on the east coast like New York or Washington. It was too early to tell at this point.

At around seven-thirty his phone rang. He didn't recall the number that showed on his caller I.D. offhand; but since Hiroko was gone, he couldn't simply forward to his secretary. He considered ignoring it; then double-thought himself, and answered.

"Mr. Kaiba," came the voice of Ms. Hermand.

"You're calling late," was Kaiba's reply.

"My apologies. I was calling about our next meeting. I realized quite soon after I left that we had never said a precise day."

"Friday," Kaiba answered. "That's the end of the week, isn't it?"

"I suppose. Have you thought at all about our partnership?"

Kaiba hadn't. It had only been a day or two. Perhaps he had forgotten about it in all of the stress.

"Yes," Kaiba lied. "I'll go over my thoughts with you on Friday."

He heard Ms. Hermand exhale on the other end of the line. "So you don't want to talk now."

"It's seven-thirty."

"You're still at work."

Kaiba scowled. This woman was beginning to get on his nerves.

"I was packing up, actually. Thanks for your _concern_."

"I apologize," came the quick reply, "and I look forward to Friday. At what time do you want to meet? And where?"

"I was thinking here, at the same time as on Monday, unless you had different ideas."

"No, I'm afraid I can agree with you." Kaiba practically heard the overly-sweet smile she must have been making. "Good evening, Mr. Kaiba."

"Yeah," came the reply, and the other line hung up.

Kaiba tried to contact Hiroko by phone but her line was busy. Rather than sit in disgust for her, Kaiba came to the conclusion that he could simply do what he needed to do himself. He scheduled his own meeting, called for the chopper (which was to land in around 20 minutes for him), and then packed up and left the room, checking Hiroko's desk for anything he could personally work on before he went to bed later that night.

Nothing of particular interest was there. There was a myriad of papers strewn about in piles that Kaiba could only guess as to how they were organized, if at all; there were picture frames with pictures of people Kaiba did not know and did not care to know, as well as stress balls, cut-outs from the comic sections of various newspapers, and an extra pair of shoes hiding in the far corner underneath Hiroko's printer.

As Kaiba turned away, however, a small slip of paper, a yellow one smashed between two stacks of white, caught his eye. Kaiba moved over and examined it. It was a phone number. Probably somebody else's phone number, he thought, and none of his business. Nevertheless, the number looked somewhat familiar to him. Kaiba set the sticky note back down, took out his blackberry, and began to stroll towards the elevator doors.

~ X X X ~

Hiroko heard a small beep early during her conversation with Pegasus. They never took very long; perhaps three minutes at the maximum, in most cases. This call was different. For some reason Pegasus had kept her on the line for over an hour, and she could only barely remember what it had been about. More than likely something about Kaiba and Hermand meeting soon, and Pegasus might have said something like Hermand calling Kaiba or something.

She was under the distinct impression that Kaiba no longer blindingly trusted her. Since his seizure a week before, he didn't seem as busy, or as engrossed, in the menial tasks that he did from day to day as he had before. Instead, she had noticed that he looked almost bored with everything, as if his mind were somewhere else. She had mentioned this to Pegasus.

"But of course, Kaiba-boy has a lot on his plate right now," Pegasus had casually responded. "It's no secret that he might have some trouble concentrating now and again anyhow."

It was Pegasus that hung up on her. He said that he was getting an important call on the other line. The entire conversation – from the abnormal length, to Pegasus' droning and childish monologues, to the fact it was he who had terminated it – gave Hiroko the distinct impression that he was beginning to have far too much control over this situation. But the daily calls paid pretty nicely, so far as she could tell from this week alone. She was in bed now, her energy having been drained from her. Then she got a message sent to her beeper around nine-thirty, after having just drifted up to sleep.

Upon checking it in the morning, she would find that she had been fired.

~ X X X ~

Pegasus' "important call" was from Kaiba, calling from his chopper. Pegasus hadn't been expecting _him _to call at all, at least, not that night; even Kaiba-boy's greeting had been accusatory.

"Pegasus."

"Kaiba! Dear me, what troubles you to call me?"

"Who were you talking to?"

Pegasus had giggled then, knowing that he could have fun with the new opportunity that had just presented itself. "Just a friend," Pegasus had responded. "Someone who's helping my company more than almost anyone else, actually."

"Is that so?" Kaiba never took kindly to Pegasus' attempt to stay casual and friendly. Kaiba probably thought it was some twisted strategy of his, to lull rivals or something wacky like that. But no, it was the way he was! And of course, he used it to his advantage. Why wouldn't he.

"I'm calling because my secretary's line was busy."

This caused Pegasus to panic, although his vocal inflection didn't change.

"Why should you call _me _if you can't even run your own office?" Pegasus had asked.

"I found a number on her desk that I recognized in my Blackberry's caller I.D. as I was looking through it. It was Industrial Illusions."

"So?"

"She's been calling you, Pegasus."

Never underestimate Kaiba-boy, Pegasus thought. Oh well, he had gotten the main information he needed anyway.

"You can't prove that," Pegasus said. "Just because my number is on her desk you can't think we've been talking behind your back for the past week."

"Is that what's been happening?" Kaiba got every hint, didn't he?

"Kaiba-boy, I was being rhetorical-"

"_Stop calling me that_. At any rate you know as well as I do that she wouldn't have needed to hide the number on a small sticky note instead of keeping it on her phone or in a rolodex."

Pegasus growled slightly. Kaiba was digging him into a hole.

"Seriously, Kaiba-boy. I'd begin to think you were getting desperate to out-compete my company."

"Maybe," Kaiba said. "I thought I should let you know that I'm cutting back on employees."

"That's not a normal sign of growth in a company, Kaiba-b-"

"One. My secretary."

Pegasus did not distinguish the dial tone from the loud humming of helicopter rotors for several seconds; only then he knew Kaiba had hung up on him once again.

~ X X X ~

It was interesting how Kaiba had managed to piece together that his secretary was being bribed by Industrial Illusions to provide information. When Kaiba recognized the number on her desk as the number needed to call Industrial Illusions, Kaiba at first hadn't thought about it too hard. Then he realized that the number wasn't Pegasus' cell number or even Pegasus' office; it was the standard number for the layperson, the same as someone calling to complain about one of their products. Kaiba had thought this was odd and had trouble fathoming that his secretary had to push her way up through the ranks of Industrial Illusions, with several forwarded calls, each time he had spoken to Pegasus. There had to be another reason why she was calling Pegasus, first because she was calling a different number that would be far more difficult to track, and second she was hiding it under her normal workload.

Kaiba then understood why she had been acting so horrible lately, why Ms. Hermand had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. While it was annoying to Kaiba – and more than likely to Ms. Hermand – to meet at seven in the morning, there was still time in California for Pegasus to set things up, react accordingly, and then casually call both parties. It was more than likely a double set-up. And Hiroko probably would have to be bribed to fall into any of this anyway.

At around nine, Kaiba was at his home office, where he sent a quick email via computer to Hiroko, who may or may not have been asleep, that he accepted her resignation and would be looking for another secretary. Kaiba had the scarcest idea who would replace her; more than likely, he could serve as his own damn secretary. He knew that probably wouldn't be a good social tactic though.

By ten-thirty, Kaiba had finished the announcement that he was looking for a new secretary, and by eleven, there was no more work to be done for that day. He simply thought about the entire mess between him, Pegasus, and Ms. Hermand as he opened up a game of minesweeper, attempting to stave off both the gravity of how complicated everything was becoming as well as a suffocating sense of apathy and boredom.

* * *

Yay, *another* long and boring chapter! I've only written to Chapter 8, anyway, so it's okay. When I get there I might have to see who wants me to keep on posting things and who wants me to just shut up and update Target more :/ Yay for polls!


	7. Chapter 7

Uploading this today because this week looks pretty bleak. Anyway, here we go.

**Disclaimer**: My only right is the ability to botch up the show by pretending to have the ability to write fiction at an adequately acceptable level. Yugioh soi-meme m'appartient pas.

* * *

Chapter 7

Thursday, December 2nd, 2004, 11:06 AM

The one person that Kaiba hadn't considered in the unfolding imbroglio was the man in charge of the company that had been recently taken over. That is, Ziegfried von Schroeder. Kaiba had barely thought of him since Schroeder's fall from grace at Kaiba's Grand Prix tournament for duel monsters back in late 2003. All relations between his own company and Ziegfried's were done by other people now, and Kaiba hadn't heard any real news since they were bought over, either. But the email he was now reading changed that. It was from Ziegfried.

_Herr Kaiba _  
_You may find it odd that I am contacting you in this way, or that I am contacting you at all. I do not wish to speak with you or to meet with you in person. Of course you know that I have failed to keep my family's company thriving and that it is now owned by Disney. I want to say but one thing to you; and that is to not trust the head woman, a French one. Her smiles are sweet but as for being genuine they are not._

Kaiba almost laughed at Ziegfried's command of the English language before he moved on.

_ She has met with you once, as I understand, and you may be meeting again soon. She pulls all of the strings. Do not underestimate her. Being allies is the first step to your company failing._  
_ Do not respond to this message!_

Ziegfried hadn't even signed his name, although the email gave him away. Kaiba considered the email for a moment. Ziegfried hated Kaiba, and the feeling was reciprocated, so Kaiba felt skeptical about taking any advice from him. Heck, the last time he had seen him he had died his hair magenta for dramatic effect, for god's sake. Apparently the last line of the email served the same silly purpose.

The only thing that really concerned Kaiba was the fact that Ziegfried knew that he and Ms. Hermand had previously met. Usually, if Ziegfried had been completely kicked out of the company, he wouldn't know about every single meeting that was occurring. He had to have stayed in some sort of position; they had to have compromised during the takeover. This entire situation entirely compromised Ziegfried's message, which warned of a complete takeover.

_I know I can't trust her because I can't trust anyone_, Kaiba thought as he selected 'delete' from the options above the message's text.

~ X X X ~

By one o clock there were already four people who had responded to the message that he had sent out requesting a new secretary to replace Hiroko. Kaiba knew that there wasn't too much time, and that if he wanted to focus on his argument for the meeting with Ms. Hermand the next day, he would have to _not _worry about all of the paperwork – that is, he needed to hastily get a secretary as soon as possible, that day even, even if it was only temporary.

He scanned the four resumes and their credentials. To his surprise three were men; only one was a woman, and hers were the worst of the lot. Kaiba spent maybe five minutes choosing the two 'finalists' out of the four. It only took him that long because one of the names had some serious credentials, but Kaiba already knew him.

He didn't want Joey Wheeler working for him.

But even the fact that he had applied, and for a secretarial job, was so completely outrageous and out of the blue that Kaiba just felt like talking to him for the sole purpose of rubbing it in to Wheeler that he was way over his head even walking into his building. So in reality, he had already chosen a secretary, some guy by the name of Yoori Kazuki. He seemed good enough; it was probably a step down for him to even be his secretary, although working for him could be seen as a privilege if you didn't know what you were getting in to.

Kaiba emailed Yoori and told him to report for the next day. He then made sure that his email was marked as spam by the computer to assure that he wouldn't be bothered by a thank you message. Finally, he emailed Wheeler and said only that "they needed to talk" at 5 PM that day. He didn't mention the job at all.

~ X X X ~

To Kaiba's chagrin he even recognized Wheeler's outfit as Kaiba met him in a separate conference room on the first floor of the KaibaCorp building, to avoid giving him the privilege of seeing his office. Wheeler was wearing the same T-shirt he had worn during the Battle City tournament, along with blue jeans. He still hadn't learned how to comb his hair. It was as if he wasn't even interviewing for what he thought was a job.

"Wheeler."

"Kaiba," he responded shortly. "Surprised to see me?"*

"No. I called you here. Now sit down."

The two moved in to the room and adopted seats on the complete opposite end of the table from one another. Wheeler didn't seem confident; but he wasn't meek. He was instead simply collected. Kaiba, on the other hand, was impatient and wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

"You didn't get the job," Kaiba hissed as Wheeler looked like he was about to speak. "You're not here for that. So don't even try."

Wheeler blinked a bit, and then asked, "So why did you want to see me? Don't you hate me?"

_Yes_. "That's not the point." Kaiba gestured with his hand. "Why the _hell _do you think you could even get a job?"

Wheeler grew a bit angry now. "Why are you wasting your time with me if you know you're not going to hire me?"

"Because I'm done for the day, and you're a warm-up for a meeting tomorrow," Kaiba said, not half-lying.

Wheeler's face grew red, and the man stood, fists curled on the table. "I didn't want your stupid job anyway, Kaiba. I just needed to talk to you."

Geez. Another person sending him some harbinger of doom. Two in one day. Exactly what he needed at this point.

"I wanted to invite you to my wedding," he said, his voice shaking. Kaiba looked at him in surprise, then covered his expression with an impassive one once again and instead glanced at the engagement ring around his finger. Engaged in the few months since he last saw him? He worked fast when his mind wasn't caught up on Duel Monsters.

"So you're wasting my time to tell me you're getting married? What type of bullshit are you pulling, Wheeler?" It was Kaiba's turn to get angry.

"It's me and Mai," Wheeler retorted hotly. "I thought after all you've done for us you could at least come to the ceremony."

"_All I've done_? What the hell have I done for _you_?" Kaiba murmured coldly. "Why the _hell _am I interested in your life? And in that case why are you interested in _mine_, applying for a job and wasting my time-"

"Fine," Wheeler said, his head bowed, in an abnormally calm voice. He looked up and began screaming again. "Fine! Be that way, you rich, spoiled asshole! How else was I supposed to ask you?"

"You could have asked Mokuba," Kaiba informed him. "But then I would have _still_ refused to come to your little satyr dance."

Wheeler was trembling with rage. "Don't you even know what it's like to love someone, Kaiba?"

Kaiba stared at him blankly. He ignored the question until Wheeler screamed it again.

"Get out."

"Answer me!"

"_Get out_."

"Damn it, Kaiba, answer-"

"If I answer you, will you go away? And not bother me with this wedding crap?"

Wheeler's eyes bored into his own, bubbling with fury. He looked like he was processing what Kaiba was saying.

"Yes," he said finally.

"Good. Your answer is yes. Now get lost."**

Joey blinked, and his voice was a harsh whisper. His voice was so low Kaiba didn't hear him, but he was too angry to bother himself to ask Wheeler to repeat himself. Instead, he clamped his fist around the handle of his briefcase, and moved stormily to the door. Just as he was about to slam it, he heard Wheeler's voice again.

"Why do you hate us all so much, Kaiba? Me and the gang? And Mai?"

Kaiba answered almost robotically to a different question. "When is it?"

"Hunh?"

"January? February? When?"

Kaiba didn't turn around when Wheeler's stunned silence turned into words again. He fumbled for the correct terms. "April. The seventeenth."

Kaiba remembered the one doctor that had taken care of him while he was in the hospital the previous week. "Tell her I said happy late birthday," Kaiba told him as his palm shut the door and his other hand turned out the light, leaving Wheeler to puzzle over how Kaiba could have known about it in the dark.

~ X X X ~

When Kaiba got back to his office, he found another message from Ziegfried von Schroeder waiting for him. Kaiba glanced over it quickly, but it basically said the same thing as before. The only new information was in the sentence

_She's plotting with Pegasus too._

Plotting was a bit of an extreme word, he thought. Besides, if she is, it makes no difference to me. He waved his hand through his chesnut hair, as if to assure himself that he was approaching this situation correctly. I'll deal with things as they come.

By six Kaiba had asked for the chopper. It was a bit early, actually, for Kaiba to request going back to the mansion; he came up with the fact he hadn't spoken to Mokuba since he had returned to the states as the reason on the spot. This was true, and Kaiba thought it might be wise to spend at least some time on the phone and asking how things were going. The day had been an abnormally strange one, and he wasn't in the mood to keep his mind stuck on the day's events.

On the ride back he concentrated most of his energy on his 'early' morning meeting with Ms. Hermand, from Disney. Quite suddenly Kaiba felt as if he had been lazy, focusing on such trivial matters as finding a secretary when he knew that his company had a large deal with Disney on the line. He considered Ziegfried's two erratic messages again, but they simply reminded him to accept a conditional friendship. Not have an all-out one; that would simply be childish, along the lines of Pegasus if he acted like he spoke. Neither could Kaiba risk denying to get into a partnership with Disney that was "positive", because if he didn't, he had already told Ms. Hermand that the relationship with Von Schroeder Corp was negative, and the denial would seem more like an aggressive act than a polite decline. Kaiba furrowed his brow in annoyance at how freakishly annoying everything was.

"Everything", of course, referred to Pegasus bribing his secretary as if Pegasus was trying again to find some way to exploit Kaiba personally as a method of taking over the company. But Pegasus technically should be worried about his own hide with Disney in the playing park now.

Unless Ziegfried was right, and Disney and Industrial Illusions were in cahoots.

The initial aggravation, and potentially fear, that Kaiba felt were quickly drowned in the realization that Ms. Hermand was probably pulling Pegasus as she was trying to pull him. It may work on Pegasus, but it wasn't going to work on Kaiba. If she felt like removing KaibaCorp's rivals, one by one, for him, then he should have no problem with that.  
After tomorrow's meeting, he'd have to wait and see.

~ X X X ~

_Dear Seto_

_ I heard about KaibaCorp's announcement that we're going international and I'm very excited to hear it! I also got your message that you sent a couple days ago. Sorry I couldn't reply to it sooner. Finals are coming up and I don't have that much time to get to contact you any longer. You didn't have to apologize, it was more my fault than anything that you went to the hospital. _

_ Anyway I can't come back and see you over my main winter break I don't think, but don't think I won't be thinking of you! If you need any help, tell me. I may not come right away, but we're always together, big bro. Sometimes I feel like coming to California was a mistake, but I don't regret anything now. You taught me that. _

_ I love you. You rock that competition!_

_ Mokuba_

_

* * *

_A few notes and tidbits here.

* This little line was uplifted from Cible, by supersophieuh, before I started translating it. It's now called "Target", and the parts I've managed to type up so far are accessible from my profile page.

** This little exchange (Starting from the first "Get Lost" down to this point) is my twisted version of trying to incorporate some of the dialogue from one of the Yugioh Abridged Series Carols. The original exchange was between abridged Kaiba and abridged Pharaoh/Yami/Atem.

- I have no idea why I wrote Joey into this story at all. I think this is when my brain was winding down, lol. But anyway, there he is. I've admitted to Polarshipping (and not to Puppyshipping, even though that's what "Target" ends up being.) So now we've seen Kaiba, Pegasus, Joey, and Mokuba, and we've mentioned Mai and Ziegfried. Who else should I bring in? ^_^

- The chapter ends with a note from Mokuba. What could this be foreshadowing?


	8. Chapter 8

If you've been reading this far, thank you SO much! This is the last chapter I've written thus far, so let's get it over with!

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Yugioh or any of the characters I'll be using. I just have the right to think about updating this fanfiction. I also don't pretend like I have any affiliation with Disney other than enjoying their movies and their theme parks; the character of Mrs. Hermand _does _have a history, in which Disney proves to be a saving grace. If I ever finish Trebuchet, I just may write her story.

* * *

Chapter 8

Friday, December 3rd, 2004, 6:56 AM

Ms. Hermand was luckily not already there waiting for him when Kaiba turned the corner into the hallway where his office was located the next morning. He had considered what he was going to say to her even more during the night, and felt prepared enough to come up a sort of a deal that would leave KaibaCorp off of Disney's radar long enough, Kaiba supposed, for Disney to think Industrial Illusions was a weaker target.

What if he was wrong? Kaiba had never stopped to think about that. The words stayed in his mind, however; paying them no heed did not cause them to simply disappear. If Kaiba was wrong, which he was quite certain he was not, then most of what he had been planning on saying would sound as if KaibaCorp were trying to circumnavigate around Disney; that is, it would seem KaibaCorp were afraid.

And if Kaiba wasn't afraid, hell if is company were.

When he reached his office he brushed his hair again, combing it down a bit more after the helicopter ride had mangled it up. On his computer he saw that Hermand had found his email address, and told him that she would arrive at seven-thirty, just like before. The message came from late last night. She probably wouldn't respond to a message Kaiba could send back, so instead he passed the approximate thirty minute wait planning out his weekend and setting up some sort of meeting with Yoori, the new secretary that supposedly was showing up today. Kaiba frowned slightly when he realized that he did not tell Yoori _when _to show up today, so far all he knew today Kaiba was on his own as well. Kaiba was muttering in frustration when there was a phone call from the lobby explaining that Ms. Hermand had arrived.

"Send her up, I can see her now," Kaiba said. Several minutes later, there was a knock on the door.

"It's not locked," Kaiba called out.

Ms. Hermand stepped in, turned, and shut the door. Then she faced Kaiba and gave him another sappy smile that Kaiba only returned with a scowl. She kept smiling as she took the seat in front of Kaiba without asking for permission beforehand.

"How are you, Mr. Kaiba?"

"Fine. Yourself?"

"Perfect, thank you."

All trivialities. It was time to get started.

"About your partnership proposal," Kaiba began.

"I was hoping you'd bring that up later, but I suppose now would suffice," she sighed heavily.

"Why later?"

"I wanted to ask you a few things."

"Do they have to do with the proposal?"

"Not quite, but-"

"Then let's wait until we're partners before you start learning anything about me you don't need to know."

She looked up at him inquisitively. "You said until we're partners….so you accept it?"

Kaiba smiled politely, but did the crossing of his hands on his desk that was customary whenever he was getting down to business.

"Not quite."

She looked at him, eyes betraying almost anger that neither her expression nor her voice did.

"Excuse me?"

"Not without a few guidelines," Kaiba elaborated slowly.

"I see," Ms. Hermand said. "I almost thought it was a complete refusal."

Kaiba frowned. "No. Not yet. My guidelines are rigid and if you don't stringently follow them then it might become one."

Ms. Hermand's blue eyes gored into him, as if trying to chew threw his skin to see his meaning. Kaiba was in control now.

"Let's hear it," Ms. Hermand said, resigned.

"One," Kaiba recited, remembering his draft of what he was to say. "Almost anything that is customary to be said of a partnership I am saying now. No buying my stocks, no going behind my back and making business deals that hurt my enterprise. You know the drill."

Azure eyes gleamed in response. "But of course."

"Now for specifics. Two," Kaiba continued. "You will subsume Industrial Illusions Company."

Kaiba smirked when he saw Ms. Hermand's expression move from impassive to genuinely startled. "Why would you force us to do that?"

"Because that's the way I do my business."

"You'd better start changing if you're going international."

"Have you considered what would happen if we did?"

Ms. Hermand began to tap her fingers on the cherry desk. "You would no longer be a localized partner. You'd be bigger."

"Isn't that what you would want? What you'd be delighted to put out in staff memos?"

She regarded Kaiba cautiously.

"And what do you think of Mr. Crawford?"

It was Kaiba's turn to lose understanding.

"Why are you bringing him up?"

"I've already talked with him," Ms. Hermand said curtly, her sickening smile never leaving her face. "Quite frankly he wants the same thing to happen to KaibaCorp."

"He would. He's been after me for years, and now that your company has entered the picture he plans to use you to take my company for himself."

She looked at Kaiba as if he were a toddler that had said something incomprehensible.

"What does this have to do with your conditions, Mr. Kaiba?"

Good point.

"KaibaCorp can only really do business with you…" Kaiba was treading on eggshells now. "…with the knowledge that Industrial Illusions is gone. They will not stop with their incessant illegalities-"

"-They have done something illegal?"

"They bribed my secretary to pass on information."

She look faintly surprised.

"That is a new development for me," she murmured.

"KaibaCorp is perfectly capable of its own distribution of its technologies, and we already know the main key to Industrial Illusions' output, which is its efficiency in holographic technology. We have not implemented it in case they use a lawsuit. But I have firm case for myself now." Kaiba had moved away from the script and was talking rapidly and he didn't know where this conversation was going to end up.

"Both Industrial Illusions and KaibaCorp will collapse if you allow either of us to survive, at this point," Kaiba said. He didn't even know if it was true. How could Kaiba file a lawsuit over a slip of post-it paper? But he kept going.

"It's either us or them. And I'd be surprised if you were as frank with me as you already were with Pegasus."

In an instant, her plastered grin had been dropped completely. She gaped at him in astonishment.

"…so you're blackmailing me? Into forcing Disney to work with you? This is outrageous-!"

"No," Kaiba said calmly. "I'm laying the situation I find myself in clear to you. And I know that you've already been making deals with Pegasus."

Her mouth opened, and closed, opened, and closed.

"Now that you see where I stand…" Kaiba rubbed his eyes thoughtfully. How had that tirade just come across to her? Hopefully she hadn't taken it the wrong way. It was completely off script.

"Point three."

"Stop!" Ms. Hermand said, raising her hand. "I get what you mean to say." She paused, and Kaiba looked at her. Her eyes were furious.

"What makes KaibaCorp think they are more important than Industrial Illusions to us?"

"So you _are_ choosing between us."

She bit her lip, softly, but enough to tell Kaiba that she believed she had made a mistake. She continued, on a different track.

"We have indeed made a deal with Pegasus already," she began slowly. "Your points are more…forward…than his own. However, backing out of what we have already agreed upon would be sheer folly at this point."

"How long has your…partnership…been going on?"

It almost looked like she cursed to herself for having mentioned a time duration in the partnership with IIC. She ran a hand through her hair, scratching it momentarily. She took a short sigh, and then suddenly sat up ramrod-straight, as if she had decided to act on an impulse.

"I am afraid I cannot accept all of your demands," she said, staring him straight in the eye. "I will tell you this. Disney does have a partnership already in place with Industrial Illusions Company. We intend to follow both of your…guidelines…as best as we can."

"Are you saying that they are contradictory?" Kaiba was intrigued now; wherever his rash blabbering had led him, it just might result in some information about exactly what the hell was going on behind his back. At this point Kaiba did not doubt something had, and perhaps Pegasus, or Ms. Hermand, or both, had gone back on their words, and hadn't expected the other to find out about it. Now Kaiba had pieced it together himself.

"They were," she admitted. "The vast part of our original plans with Industrial Illusions were withdrawn earlier this week." She didn't specify when. "You just might get your way, Kaiba."  
Kaiba smirked. "That's nice to know. Nice talking to you."

She stood, apparently eager to get out of the office room and away from Kaiba. Ms. Hermand was undeniably disturbed by what Kaiba had said. Some part of it.

"Of course," she whispered, and she moved quickly to the other end of the room. "Maybe at our next meeting I can say more from our point of view."

"Naturally," Kaiba replied. More trivialities.

As Ms. Hermand reached the door, Kaiba overheard her say to herself, quite irritably, that both men drove abnormally dramatic bargains.

~ X X X ~

Kaiba checked his email three minutes after Hermand left, taking the time to compose himself. His brain was buzzing. What the hell just happened? Why didn't he just stick to what he had planned on saying? There was only one word in his head now. _Disaster. _Of course Ms. Hermand might want a meeting next week sometime, and Kaiba admitted solemnly that she would probably take charge of the meeting just as much as Kaiba had thrust his conditions upon her today. It was probably the most amazingly brash, amateur faux pas he had made. If push came to shove he could blame it on a "headache", which would be interpreted as the side effects of a seizure, but Kaiba didn't want to make himself look weak to the media or anybody else. Especially her and Pegasus.

Why the _hell _did he do that? What could have caused him to have abruptly moved on and practically threaten her? And what would Disney do now? He couldn't just apologize, because that would look as fake as it would probably feel writing it. Maybe somehow he was still brimming that Wheeler had dared come in and waste his time yesterday about his damn wedding. Who gave a –

The phone rang. Kaiba answered it hurriedly, to stop himself from fretting any further.

"What now?"

"Mr. Kaiba," shook a young voice that sounded like a new employee in the lobby. "There's someone here who wants to see you."

Kaiba growled a bit. "Is it my new secretary?"

There was some fidgeting. Then, a positive reply.

"Send him up."

Kaiba slammed down the receiver and stared straight ahead, musing over everything. It was almost like back a few years ago where everything seemed so blatantly cliché and inconvenient to him. It was happening again. The geek squad was trying to get back in his life, KaibaCorp was under fire again… at least Mokuba wasn't being kidnapped, and he didn't need to run another card game tournament. That would have probably thrown him over the damn edge.

He'd have to call Pegasus again too, damn it. He was sure that if Pegasus and Hermand had been exchanging info on KaibaCorp behind his back, they wouldn't stop now that they knew Kaiba was on to them. Knowing Pegasus, the act would just get more exciting. This time, however, Kaiba would have to plan his words far more carefully. Or at least adhere to them far more carefully, whichever actually worked for him.

A knock on the door. "Hello?"

"It's not _locked_," Kaiba almost yelled.

A young man entered as if he were some sort of spy. He looked awestruck at the sheer size of the office, and looked professional, even though he wasn't acting like it.  
Then he saw Kaiba.

"H-h-hello, Mr. Kaiba. My name is-"

"You're my new secretary, right?" Kaiba didn't feel like introductions at the moment. "Good. The cubicle across the way from my office is yours. You have permission to throw away anything you don't need."

Yoori simply looked at him, perplexed at Kaiba's brevity.

"And by the way, I don't drink coffee. So don't ask me if I want any."

"O-okay," Yoori said, and bowed slightly before nearly running out of the room.

"Ugh," Kaiba muttered. Why couldn't he make acquaintances with a normal person for once?

~ X X X ~

Ironically it was the day Kaiba thought about how erratically inconvenient everything was that things began to move back to normal. Yoori was a meek kid that just happened to do amazing things when nobody was looking, which was fine for Kaiba because quite frankly he didn't want to have to spend his time thinking about what his secretary was doing. The few days thinking about Hiroko were the days that everything had gone bat-crazy, after all. Perhaps the best think was that, true to his word, Yoori hadn't bugged him about wanting a cup of coffee.

Kaiba spent the next few weeks, as Mokuba had originally planned, without contacting him. Most of Kaiba's schedule focused on coming up with an official execution of KaibaCorp's plan to go international, and several locales were chosen to become regional headquarters. One was placed in Frankfurt, Germany, near to where the von Schroeder corporation used to be headquartered (this move was more out of spite than anything, although Germany's economy was such that it was a good excuse anyway); another in Shanghai, China; and a third to be placed in Richmond, Virginia, United States. Richmond had been the interesting choice; it was the state capitol, to be sure, but it was by no means the major city that Shanghai or Frankfurt were, and Kaiba himself had not come up with that suggestion. Instead, a vice president with relatives in the United States had convinced him, somewhat shakily, that Virginia was a good place to launch things, but Washington (the nearest major city) was too obvious, and Richmond looked like a bolder move which could provide better payouts. More people, the vice president had given as an example, would prefer to move to the suburbs of central Virginia than they would shoving themselves into a smaller apartment in a foreign country where they couldn't speak the language. At least everyone Kaiba would hire spoke English enough to survive in the States.

As for Pegasus' threat to "watch his back", Kaiba saw no developments out of Industrial Illusions during the time period. Of course he had been watching them; to simply ignore them and focus wholeheartedly on progress would have been more than insane knowing how the meeting with Hermand had gone. _Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer_. Kaiba had no friends. So that left him only one burden to take care of.

It was almost like he had things back under control again. Things were normal. If it weren't for the occasional thought for maybe perhaps scheduling a meeting with Hermand, which never gained any precedence over what he had been thinking about previously, or for the fact a young man instead of a young woman was at work behind the desk in front of his office door, it would have been as if nothing had happened.

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Kaiba worked. He didn't celebrate them, for one because he wasn't a Christian, and he honestly expected other people to show up either.

Apparently a lot of people had bought into the free time the two days afforded, however, and had jumped on the western bandwagon and not shown up.

It was December 26, 2004, and everything seemed to be going normally. Kaiba arrived at work by seven, and at seven-twenty had called Yoori to arrange another meeting that wasn't originally on his schedule.

There was no response.

Kaiba went outside to find Yoori transfixed, watching the television.

"What are you doing?" Kaiba asked, almost casually.

Yoori flinched a bit, but then pointed to the TV, wide-eyed, as if he were a third-grade child hypnotized to his cartoons. "Look, Mr. Kaiba. It's horrible."

Kaiba scrutinized what he was watching. It was a news report from Indonesia about waves. Giant ones.

_The tsunami started around thirty minutes ago just before seven this morning_, spoke the news anchor, a video displaying the event she was discussing in the upper right-hand corner._ There was an earthquake off of the small Indonesian village of Banda Aceh which caused massive shaking. We have not yet received word on how powerful these quakes might have been but some experts are already saying it could be one of the deadliest in modern history. We expect the waves to cause massive damage in Indonesia and Thailand within the hour…_

Then it hit Kaiba. If they were going to move into the street club of international business, then this was their first Barbara Streisand karaoke. Kaiba almost swore under his breath.  
The Boxing day tsunami was an international emergency.

* * *

Whew. That's over with! And so far, that's all of Trebuchet! I know, it ended with a realistic event-cliffhanger... I just never got past it!

PLEASE leave a review, because I'm not sure if this story is enough to keep working with or if I should just move on to a more contemporary idea of mine. I'd hate to abandon it, but if it would be a waste of my time, then I shouldn't waste my energy. I'll probably put up a poll on my profile concerning the matter.

Thanks for reading! Hopefully they'll be a next time...

~ Mardigny


	9. Chapter 9

So, Trebuchet is officially back in business! (Based on two poll votes.)

I apologize profusely for the change in my tone, writing style, etc. from the previous eight chapters. Not writing a story for five months definitely leaves a dent in that department.

In other news, I decided that the story was too focused on Kaiba (in terms of the narration), and important plot points weren't being done, so for this chapter, I shook things up a bit. I don't know how many chapters they'll end up being at this point, but I think 13 - 15 would be a nice number. ("Unlucky" thirteen, especially!) So I'll shut up now. I hope things aren't too obvious or too well-hidden.

**Disclaimer**: Yugioh does not belong to me. The only thing here that does is a) My knowledge of French and b) The character of Noelle Hermand.

* * *

Chapter 9

Wednesday, December 29th, 2004 11:37 PM PST

San Francisco, CA

Max Crawford stood in front of his well-polished bathroom mirror, peering into it closely as if he were trying to find a way to enter some parallel universe it might be hiding. He was still dressed up in his business clothes – he had just gotten back from the office, even though quite technically his required hours had ended, well, hours ago. He was at the point of desperation.

Despite the time of day he felt more awake than ever – his eyes were blazing with a sort of maniac fear or passion, his hair, once neatly combed over to cover over his missing eye, was now distinctly _un_fabulous, with split ends galore and large, knotted lumps near the temples. Pegasus was breathing harshly, almost wheezing. This couldn't be happening.

For months, he had thought that his plan might actually reach some sort of fruition – that he had thought things through well enough the first time, and that things wouldn't boil down to what he was now staring in the face. Metaphorically; he didn't mean himself.

Or did he? It was _his _fault after all. _His _fault that he couldn't control his caprices, his own fault that he felt a higher attachment to Industrial Illusions after he had stepped down as CEO and voluntarily accepted the job as its chief auditor – now, he was paying that price. He thought he could accept someone else controlling his company, as long as he was in control.

He had been very, very wrong.

Pegasus turned, then, and bit his lower lip with a mixture of despair and outrage. The recent earthquake that had killed thousands, and displaced thousands – possibly millions – more in Asia shouldn't have shook him up nearly as badly as it just had. And it wasn't for any humanitarian reason. Pegasus almost chastised himself for believing that all of his troubles were egocentric, and not related to the human suffering taking place on the other side of the planet. But its repercussions on his company were what bothered him. Quite frankly, Industrial Illusions didn't have enough money to give a sufficient financial aid package to the west to look like a savior. To look like it still had any power now that it was in cahoots with Disney. And it was all his own fault.

Pegasus played through the situation in his head, one more time, as determined but shuffling steps led him into his bedchamber, across the rug dyed a midnight blue by the somber moonlight, and into his private bureau, a room filled to the brim with all sorts of childish things that helped him to concentrate. But he didn't focus on that. He was looking straight ahead, right above the desk, at the pin-up calendar.

He soon realized that, of _course_, the calendar was for _this_ year – he was stunned at how tired he must have been somewhere deep inside – and began to rummage through the drawers, looking for the calendar from two years ago, now almost three.

It all started when he stepped down. Though technically Industrial Illusions was no longer his problem, Pegasus now mused, he had been able to give up feeling responsible for it, like a parent unable to stop loving their child after they had grown up and left the nest. He couldn't stand to simply retire, and leave his life's work up to Seto Kaiba to destroy. So he became the chief of its audit board, so he could still keep a nice eye on its financial wealth, if only to soothe his own qualms than for its own good. That was his _first _mistake.

His hands found the map from 2002, and his fingers flew, rushing to that July. Near the bottom of the page, his coffee-colored eyes fell upon the date that ruined his company, if only because it had ruined him first.

He had panicked. He couldn't trust any external auditors; so he had bribed them. With his own damn pocket money, yes, he had told them essentially to go to hell because, naturally, the old CEO knew precisely what he was doing and didn't need their help. He needed to bribe them and it was illegal, now. Two years later, Max Pegasus was in financial shambles. With an almost primal cry, he snatched some sharp object off of his desk, he didn't know what, and plunged it through the calendar, through that precise date, so that the instrument lay fast, halfway ground into his workstation. _Damn _that day! _Damn it! Damn it!_ And he had thought Disney would help him? What the hell had he been thinking? Pegasus didn't know, but he knew _how – _he had been thinking like a raving lunatic, a starving man, like one of the tsunami victims. Was it his own fault? Was it Hermand's? Was it Kaiba's? How could he ever pretend like the company could outperform Kaiba's if everything got blown out of the water?

He was fearing for his life any day now. Not an assassination – no, that would probably put his soul at peace more than anything. He was afraid of the police, coming, now that she was about to testify at some private court in Japan, and he knew bloody well he couldn't do a _damn _thing to stop her. Why had he bribed _her_? Why couldn't he just stick to Industrial Illusions' external auditors? Or just its board? Or why anyone at all?

Suddenly, his eyes brightened, glistening in the darkness. His body became unusually still as he snapped, the stress overwhelmed him, and his conniving idea began to be pulled and stretched and fleshed out, the third and final brainchild of a deranged man.

~ X X X ~

Saturday, January 1st, 2005, 12:03 AM

Tokyo, Japan

She couldn't get out of her little western habits, despite all attempts she had to assimilate herself into the Japanese culture. But she felt now that multiculturalism must have its perks. Noelle Hermand fell to her knees, in a corner of her small apartment in Toyko, and began to ask, quietly but earnestly, for her wishes for the new year.

She would wish for many things, she knew; she did every year. - perhaps good business luck; happiness, like anyone else; this year a prayer for the tsunami victims, definitely. But as she kneeled there in her pajamas, work _really _felt like the last thing on her mind; her only thoughts were how the lights of the Christmas tree (a fake) were bathing her skin in a multitude of colors, as varied as her appearances to her friends, her colleagues, her family, her business partners.

The first thing she wished for she wished for every year. It was an intensely private dream, one that delved back into the heart of her past, and one that she had never shared to anyone – one that caused her to completely change career paths, become estranged from her loving family, and the one that caused her to be here today.

She began to whisper in her native tongue, her religious background from her French childhood flooding back to her, one of the few times it ever did...

_"Je vous en prie, mon Dieu, fait que je trouve-_"

Well, _that _was fast.

It had hit her – the realization, that is – faster than she could have thought possible when she began her prayer. But apparently, God thought it would be funny this time to flat-out tell her the umpteenth time she wished for it. And _Jesus_, did it make _so. much. sense!_ Noelle stood, eyes wide and rimmed with tears, her auburn hair a shock that contrasted to the pallor that had instantly come across her face. Thunderstruck, she fled from the living room and dashed into her bedroom, shutting the door unusually loudly.

This certainly made more than a few things complicated. Everything seemed completely alight with the fervor she was experiencing; she felt herself shiver in what could have been fear or excitement or even cold (the heating system wasn't the best for a flat that cost this much.) It was like the puzzle of her life had just been solved for her; all of her previous suspicions, that she had taken note of but never bothered to place together, now seemed like such obvious red flags that she was almost nearly as surprised that she hadn't noticed it earlier. But amongst all the other thoughts she had, the ones that cascaded to her and made her feel as if blacking out would be a much more lovely alternative than surviving this sensation, one very odd one came to her. So absurd, in fact, it made her laugh.

_Pourquoi est-ce que je penserais de faire quelque chose comme ça _maintenant_? _Why would I think of doing something like that _now_?

Smiling stupidly, a new power overtaking her, she picked up her little notebook she had had since her college days – that an old boyfriend had given her – off of her nightstand, the one where she recorded dreams, aspirations, her thoughts, her plans – especially her business plans. It was like her diary.

She titled it _2005! _with sloppy, giddy writing, far too large for someone who thought they knew her to accurately identify who wrote it. She underlined it thickly and quickly, giving the impression of a preschooler. Below this, she simply put two words in English:

_MISSION ACCOMPLISHED_

And shut it again.

All the other resolutions could wait. She was alive again, and luckily, she had an idea about what she could do at work once she returned in a few days, whose side she would take.

What she didn't know is just how much that choice would twist her life, just as she was on the cusp of rediscovering what it meant to live.

~ X X X ~

Monday, January 3rd, 2005, 4:07 AM

San Francisco, CA

Mokuba Kaiba was fast asleep in his dorm at Cal Berkeley. A fast, troubled sleep.

Recently, he had written a second letter to Seto, but he couldn't gather himself up to send it. Mostly, he had thought while awake, it was because it almost completely contradicted what he had been telling his brother ever since his operation. Was it a teenager's fault that he liked independence? No. He wasn't giving _up _on Seto; in fact, Seto had never even told him that he _would_ be taking over the company once he resigned due to old age or stress or finally finding true love. He was just ruling it out. That was all.

Now he was having nightmares about it – Seto's reaction. How he had betrayed him. Gone back to Noah, to Gozaburo, destroyed everything Seto had ever worked for. Mokuba tried to explain that it was his own life to lead, and not Seto's, and that he still appreciated everything; but Mokuba was never very good at lucid dreaming, and thus his nightmare continued on while he had to suffer all of the possible consequences.

While he initially yelled in surprise at the noise of what could have been a large rock hitting his window, waking him up, Mokuba quickly covered this up by telling himself he should be happy that whoever it was stopped his nightmare. Probably he had been screaming or something and they wanted him to shut up. Comforting.

"Might as well start more reading in that book…" Mokuba muttered drowsily, looking around for his roommate, which he remembered was… not… there… he couldn't remember why… American college was so odd sometimes.

As Mokuba reached his computer screen, he absently picked up the book that was sprawled across it. The novel – Oscar Wilde's _The Picture of Dorian Gray _– was turned only to page thirty, and the entire book was due read soon, all one-hundred ninety-three pages of it.

Mokuba had barely focused his eyes on the English words, struggling to switch languages at this despicable hour, when suddenly, the large _bang _came again, like a gunshot, startling him severely. The book dropped below his desk, and Mokuba turned wide-eyed towards the door to his room, which he saw had been warped slightly by something large.

Or some_one_.

Before Mokuba could react the sound came again, and with an explosion of splinters the door itself caved in, and a huge man was standing in front of it, the butt of an enormous rifle in his grasp as if it were a battering ram. And then he flipped it around, aiming straight at Mokuba.

Suddenly, neither Wilde nor the letter to his brother seemed like very important problems anymore.

~ X X X ~

Monday, January 3rd, 2005 7:15 AM

Las Vegas, NV

A private jet taxied in for landing, its flaming lights contrasting starkly with the light desert morning that was only beginning to unravel into more puissant colors.

The pilot didn't have to be in Las Vegas; indeed, neither did the passenger. Well, not to the layman's eye. But if you asked the passenger, then the reason they were there had to do with an absolute, albeit illegal, necessity on his part. The fact the plane had nothing to do with the passenger's job or company was a necessity as well.

They were only stopping for fuel; Nevada wasn't far enough away. Despite all the great tax breaks, and Pegasus knew it (as Industrial Illusions _was _a Nevada Company), there was one place within reach that was better.

Less than an hour later, they were en route to their final destination – Pegasus' hand-picked asylum of safety. Pegasus earnestly hoped, with what little sanity remained, he hoped his plan could work without anything going awry; where he could put himself back together, and never be incarcerated for his actions. As he knew, all monsters are eventually destroyed. Take the Leviathan, for instance.

Pegasus gazed introspectively, then.

_Even a peaceful monster_.

* * *

Despite how long this chapter is it doesn't seem that long to me. o.O God forbid I realize just how long any future chappy might become...

Anyway, as usual, I have a few things to go over here. I'll split it by section.

1) Pegasus is apparently very angry at some certain date in late July 2002. Knowing his current profession, what is he so mad about? Can you piece together his entire motivation and the reason why he went insane? (Yes, it's canon for this fic now. Ha. Not that Kaiba would notice...HINT)

2) This is an easy one. What does Noelle (err, Mrs. Hermand) realize? Why does she suddenly feel like she can live again? This is a really critical realization, so hopefully it isn't too obvious. By the way, I'm not translating the one French sentence for you. Google translate exists. :D

3) So what's happening to Mokuba? I think this is important for his character development; hopefully I did it okay, but I shouldn't focus all my writing energy on doing something so important to the plot when I haven't written squat in five months. . Oh well. As for the novel I mentioned (_The Picture of Dorian Gray_, Oscar Wilde), it's one of the books _I'm _currently reading, and I couldn't think of anything else, so... xD

4) Pegasus makes his getaway! From what? I have done research on business types and it makes complete sense to me that Peggy would choose a Nevada corporation (seeing as it's also canon that's where he's originally from.) Where is there a better deal, though? That's where he's heading. Oh, as for"Even a peaceful monster", that comes from one of the poems Marilyn Monroe wrote to herself that was recently published, I think most prominently to the public in _Vanity Fair _(Nov. 2010). I would think Pegasus would look up to Marilyn, don't you?


	10. Chapter 10

Hitting the double digits with Trebuchet now, guys and gals! :D Sorry if this chapter is a) Completely off stylistically from the others and is b) Super-short, but my fingers are tired from just translating what I think is the longest chapter in "Target", and they're getting mad at me. o.O

**Disclaimer**: Yu-Gi-Oh! δεν ανήκει σε μένα. Google translate says that's Greek for "Yugioh does not belong to me". Someone Greek please check that.

* * *

Chapter 10

Monday, January 3rd, 2005 8:34 AM

Tokyo, Japan

It was probably one of the more intriguing office spaces within the Tokyo city limits, if not within the entire nation of Japan. The room was large and appeared to be cast into shadow despite the large window behind Mrs. Hermand's desk; perhaps it was due to the fact that none of the wall could be seen, hidden behind cupboards or armoires or posters or trophies or diplomas that, despite her status, were quite modest. Her first one, eclipsed practically entirely in shadow, said that she was a major in Greek classics. Not even she knew how she had ended up the most important of Disney's representatives in Japan. Luck? Perhaps.

She was beginning her workday, the first one back after the Christmas and New Years holiday that she had taken off, and the first day back in the office after she had had her mind-blowing revelation. That wasn't the first thing on her mind, though; she was planning on calling Kaiba later that day for updates, and she certainly wasn't expecting to hear from Pegasus.

That was a lie, she would _probably _hear from him later that day. But when her phone rang and his voice drifted over the line at _that _hour of the morning – hell, she had only just managed to walk in after stopping for some coffee to warm herself up - she had been quite appalled.

"Max! I wasn't expecting you to call me quite this early!"

"I'm so terribly sorry, Noelle," he cooed, using her first name (to her great irritation). "But I need you to do something for me. It's very important."

"I… what is it?"

"I'm stepping down. I need you to take over my company."

Wait, wait, wait. What?

"_Excuse _me?" Mrs. Hermand nearly shrieked, almost knocking her Styrofoam coffee cup, now half-empty, off the table and onto the floor. "Did I understand you correctly, Mr. Pegasus?"

"Please, it's urgent. I'm giving it to you. Take it. Please. I need you to."

"You're the chair of the audit board, not the CEO, I'd have to buy up the shares- "

"Do that. Now. As soon as possible. I'm begging you!"

"I… wait, I don't understand," Mrs. Hermand was spluttering, grasping her forehead with her free hand. "You… want me to… buy your company? Make some harebrained investment that could ruin my company, and even if it _didn't _would draw us under international criticism? You know full well that we're having discussions that the world media is aware of, Pegasus, and if on some sort of caprice I just willingly decided to buy you out- "

There was a heart-wrenching wail on the other side of the line. Mrs. Hermand's blood chilled in her veins. She began to grow seriously frightened now.

"Max? Are you okay?" Silence on the other end; but there was some sort of background noise. Loud, too, like a plane engine. "Where are you?"

No response.

"Are you on a plane, Mr. Pegasus?"

The noise abruptly cut off. Something was terribly wrong. Max Pegasus seemed to be... feisty, edgy. Insane, too. Yeah, definitely that.

She simply sat there, defeated, in her office chair, phone lazily hanging beside her head, as her eyes trailed off to somewhere, thinking. Did this somehow involve Kaiba, too? She did have a normal business call with him later today, anyway. Should she ask him later, or call him now? It might be too late then….

The phone rang once more. It was someone wanting to report some sort of budget change or something… It would have to be later, then.

~ X X X ~

Even if Noelle Hermand had attempted to contact Seto Kaiba at that precise time, she wouldn't have been too successful. Not at all; Kaiba wasn't in his office. He was frantic. Beside himself. What the hell?

He had received a phone call at around one or two AM. First of all, he hadn't been too kind to whoever the hell was calling him because he had only been asleep for thirty minutes. Probably the worst possible to wake someone up.

His mood went from bad to worse when they relayed the news that his little brother had vanished overnight from his Berkeley dorm, and the only possible clue is that someone, in a half-drunk, half-asleep stupor, had apparently reported that they _might _have heard a shot or two go off.

The rest of the night, he had been perfectly awake. Agitated, outraged, worried for his brother's life, but yes, awake was also an acceptable adjective.

He was currently on the phone with one of the Berkeley police agents about a letter that they found near his brother's computer, that was half-complete. For all they knew, he had been writing it when he was taken.

Kaiba was heartbroken when he learned, for all intents and purposes, that its basic message was "Seto, buzz off." He thought he might have another seizure. Better to just get on with the show. After several howling fits at variant police officers on the other side of the Pacific, Kaiba was almost ready to fly over there himself to give California a piece of his mind.

But by the time the last phone call came to a close, Kaiba was still in his mansion, cell phone in one hand, eyes glazing over, rather like the expression of Mrs. Hermand.

The difference was, while Kaiba was begging himself to move on, go to work, get something done, have high hopes, the Seto inside him began to cry.

On the outside, Seto won.

~ X X X ~

By the time three o'clock rolled around, Mrs. Hermand was just about ready for her business call to Mr. Kaiba. The budget issue had been relegated to its proper department after a terse war of words, and after a few minor issues she was thrilled to discover that it was already after noon and she wasn't even hungry. This was great. Anything seemed as if it go right today; she almost completely forgot about the hair-rising phone call from Pegasus begging her to buy up his stock.

That is, until she called Kaiba.

He normally picked up with a ring or two, to the point and sharp, demanding, businesslike. This took five rings, and his greeting was 'hello'. Not "Kaiba", not "what", just… "hello".

Hermand raised her eyebrows slightly, and greeted him back. "Nice to talk to you. If I remember properly, I was to give you my monthly report for your records, including the amount that Disney has so far generated for aid to the tsunami victims in Indonesia…"

Her voice trailed off when she heard Kaiba breathing. Normally, that wasn't the most apparent thing you heard over a phone, but it sounded as if he was ill. Or distraught.

After a slight pause, she asked politely, "Mr. Kaiba? Should we reschedule our call?"

Kaiba answered a different question, his voice unnaturally high-pitched. "Has anything weird happened to you recently?"

Mrs. Hermand's jaw slackened slightly as she remembered Pegasus' call, but she felt she better avoid that.

"No, and I don't see what that has to do with- "

"Tell me the _truth_, Hermand."

His voice was so full of malice, she gasped slightly, and reluctantly, very reluctantly, began to attempt to salvage the situation. "I… has something happened, Mr. Kaiba?"

"_Tell_ me, damnit."

Did he know about Pegasus' call? Even if he did, why would that be of any importance? Kaiba was a man of business, who put important things first.

Unless Pegasus really _was _up to something.

"Er… Pegasus called me earlier this morning. He seemed…disturbed. He…" She wondered if she should tell him, but before she could complete her thought she had already said it. "She wanted me to buy out his company. He was desperate. I… has something happened between you?"

Nothing.

"Mr. Kaiba?"

There was a crescendo of a roar on the other line. Kaiba started cursing and swearing with so little restraint Hermand felt completely inclined to let the phone rest on her desk until she could no longer hear the noise it was giving off from four or five feet away.

"THAT BASTARD! HE TOOK HIM! I KNEW IT! I FUCKING KNEW IT!"

"Mr. Kaiba, please, calm yourself- "

"My _donations _are completely satisfactory," Kaiba hissed harshly. "Right now, if you don't mind, now that we've traded niceties, I have a brother in another continent to find!"

A what?

"You… your brother… you have a brother… and he-"

The line was already dead.

It was around that time, she would later reflect, that her day completely went off the edge of a cliff. And she had been so sure of it, too…

So close. So. _Fucking_. Close.

Unless…

The idea appeared bizarre to her; she almost dismissed it. But upon chasing it further, she found that it was possible. No, it must have happened, just so that he could rub it in her face. He _did_. Didn't he? So that explained it…

Her face crumpled into her hands, her auburn hair shielding it from the sight of anyone peeking through her office door.

It was Noelle's turn to cry.

~ X X X ~

Somewhere in California, it was darkness - cloudy, for there was no moon to be seen. But for one Mokuba Kaiba - tied up, gagged, and suspended over the frigid waters of San Francisco bay- it was light. Literally - the rescue vessel's light was really strong, and he had to close his eyes due to the discrepancy.

He was elated. The boat neared, and unintelligible words were shouted via megaphone. _Someone found me… _

_Was Seto worried about me? _

Everything after that rushed by in a blur. He would have plenty of time to explain what had happened to him later; right now, he ignored whatever was being said to him and indulged himself in hot chocolate, feeling sleep finally beginning to win its battle to overtake him.

And Kaiba, in Tokyo, was overjoyed to hear they had found him, and had fallen into a troubled sleep before the sun had even set. He hadn't moved away from it the entire day.

He was troubled even though he had been correct, because Mokuba had wanted to declare his independence from him -and ironically it was at that moment that... and it was all Pegasus' fault.

He dreamt of a faucet, spewing hot water sans fin, and when he tried to turn it off the handles broke off. When he looked underneath to check the piping he instead found a maze he couldn't escape from...

~ X X X ~

January 3rd, 2005, 9:58 PM

Hamilton, Bermuda

Max Pegasus could only grit his teeth, blinking back tears, as he stood shell-shocked, hopeless, in his hotel room. Through the little looking-glass there were police officers, some with rifles, pounding on the frame and demanding he come out.

He was under arrest for tax evasion, and for breaking the law. Namely, for going directly against the Sarbanes-Oxley act by bribing his external auditors to turn the other cheek, but what those fools could never comprehend was how he thought he was doing it for the good of Industrial Illusions.

What now? If he went to prison, and if Hermand didn't take his company like he had asked her to (which of course she wouldn't have, it would be his luck), his company's reputation would be tarnished. Destroyed. Ruined. Everything he would be alive for would be dead.

If one of them lived, one of them would have to die. And by no means would Industrial Illusions die. He had worked too hard, done as much as he could. It would not die because of him.

He would die first.

Pegasus rose his right arm, revealing a small handgun clenched within. He stood completely straight, the slightest hints of tears forming in his eyes. He felt the cold kiss of metal on his temple. He began to brush the trigger when the door burst open, and the cops swarmed in, a slight island breeze wafting into the room with them, smelling of salt, even though the cold wind stung this time of year.

He thought he could avoid them. Thought that he could start anew in Bermuda, the only place he could think of that he might be able to salvage his conscience. Plan A failed. Time for Plan B.

A single shot rang out.

* * *

Oh, I did *not* just leave you with a cliffhanger. Well, I resolved the last one but I left a new one. Sorry! It must be the way my brain is working these days...

If you don't know, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (passed July 30, 2002) is a U.S. federal law that does tons of things, but most importantly to the story, forces businesses to have more external auditors so that there's less chance of financial corruption. Pegasus bribed the external auditors to pay no attention as he manipulated its funds with little to no repercussions on him until now. Dirty little secret's out!

And that dream Kaiba has? I actually had it, hence why it's in here. It was weird. Trust me.


	11. Chapter 11

Finally, a Trebuchet update! This one's pretty long because I want to finish it in the next chapter (probably inevitably, that won't be happening). Why must my brain forget anything and everything I write with every hiatus? How annoying.

Anyway...

This pretty much took me forever to write. I started working on it immediately after I wrote Chapter 10, but of course I haven't been on here in a few weeks... so this entire chapter probably sounds strangled due to the nature of both the author and the time frame in which it was written. But it's about time something else happened. Right?

* * *

Chapter 11

2:47 PM, Thursday, January 6th, 2005

San Francisco, California, USA

Seto Kaiba sat, almost as if he were a hunk of granite, in a cheap rolling desk chair in one of the more cramped of the Berkeley dorms. His eyes were fixed on the smudged tile, exchanging wordless conversation with his brother, who was laying on the top bunk, back to him. He sighed every other minute or so, as if going over mentally what he could possibly say.

Kaiba hadn't really known to make of that letter, once he had had his rational brain back in lieu of the panicked one. Mokuba had desperately tried to explain to him that the letter was merely meant as a rough draft for what he wanted to tell him; so far, that little explanation Mokuba had 'meant' hadn't come. He hoped he would tell him before his flight in three hours.

Mokuba rolled over, black hair no longer flowing over his shoulders after he had cut it above shoulder length – one of the freedoms he had once he had no longer been under his brother's strict eye. His mouth suggested pouting, but the glittering eyes belonged to a Kaiba, and thus the pouting effect was removed completely.

"Seto."

Kaiba didn't give him the honor of glancing up, feeling more like a disappointed parent than a sibling willing to hear him out. Nevertheless, he grunted to signal he had heard.

"I… I meant what I said in that letter. But… you read it, and I thought it … it was too harsh. That's why I didn't send _that _one."

Kaiba grunted again, wondering why he was here, and not getting work done over in Tokyo where he supposedly belonged. Why he was here, suffering all this pain.

"…But I have to tell you, Seto. I like being here. I like California, I like my classes, I like my friends… I like being _alone_, Seto. I'm an adult. And… I love you, bro, but…"

Kaiba swallowed hard, understanding Mokuba's point. It was difficult, yes, but he made himself clear. He didn't need Kaiba anymore. It was over. Maybe it _had _been over and he had been too possessive to want to realize it.

"So I should go," Kaiba said curtly, not daring to face his little brother, the one person for whom he had ever lived, the only person that mattered, the one person that understood _him _and not his frightening persona – but the only one that still had the chutzpah to turn him away.

"No!" Mokuba spat, sitting up on the bed and balling his fists. "That's not what I mean! Please, bro, listen to me. You did everything for me… and thank you… I can't repay you. But I have to move on! I'm no longer that preteen running around Battle City!"

Kaiba recoiled at the reference to his own tournament, and continued obstinately to deny the deeper voice that was pleading with him, only hearing the younger, slightly nasally tone he was used to.

"I can't. You're everything," Kaiba managed. "And… that seizure… do you know why that happened?"

"You're overworked," Mokuba stated simply, a hint of venom snaking into his tone. "It got to you at the wrong time- "

"_No_!" Kaiba roared, standing suddenly and shoving the chair aside, causing it to tip over and fall with a crash. "It was _your _fault! I wanted to see _you!_ I love you too much and I can't _lose _you anymore! You're the only thing I have!"

Seto was breathing heavily, eyes unwavering, as if he was rebuking himself slightly for the outburst. Mokuba gaped at him, a mix of fright and incredulity. He sat up, almost a smile on his face, eyes brightened with both thanks and anger. The room rang with the reverberations of the impact of the chair and the floor.

"Don't tell me KaibaCorp isn't important to you!"

"I did it for-"

"I _know _you did!" Mokuba cut in, voice having lowered dangerously. "But please, think for _you_. I can take care of myself!"

"Is that why a thug with a huge-ass shotgun blew down your door the other day?" Kaiba shrieked, beside himself. "You _can't _protect yourself! You _need _me, just like I need you!"

Mokuba went silent, unable to respond to Seto's deranged logic. It was no use; his brother was apparently now physically incapable of detaching himself from him – his brother would always worry about him. It was abnormal – parents, if that's what his brother was to him, were usually glad to see their children grown, ready to leave the nest _finally_. But Seto… Seto wanted to call Mokuba a chick even though he had already spread his wings and begun his first dive into the real world. It was infuriating… and Mokuba knew, however annoying it might come across as, that he couldn't blame him. He just couldn't.

There was an awkward silence where the remains of their quarrel continued to bounce around the thin walls and the other people in the hall had stopped whatever they were doing, anxious about all the fighting. Kaiba didn't drink – it wasn't worth it – but damn if he didn't have moments that he thought he really should. His throat was dry from the outbursts, anyway.

The awkwardness passed, and the two glanced away from the other, returning them back to their previous situation of controlled silence. They stayed this way, both fuming, for some time, until there was a light knock on the door.

"No," Mokuba shot at the wood, not turning.

The door opened anyway, and Kaiba's top non-secretarial assistant, Roland, appeared. He appeared to have moved in with his shoulder, as in each hand he held a Starbucks coffee.

"Um… anyone?" he asked. He was unaware of the goings-on, apparently.

Mokuba looked at him slowly, then descended the bunk and took one from Roland's hands, gasping when he accidentally touched the part without the protective cardboard 'handle'.

"Watch for the- "

"I _know_, Roland," Mokuba hissed at him.

A few seconds passed. Roland then turned to Kaiba, who didn't seem to have moved. "Sir?"

"No thanks," Kaiba growled.

"It's good. They have a good cafeteria here," Roland explained calmly, not batting an eyelash to his boss' tone. "It's not your style, but you _really _look like you could use one."

Kaiba reached for the cup and took it as Mokuba had – on the hot part – but did not flinch nor look up. Sometimes, it was better just to acquiesce to your secret vices.

Who knows? Maybe he might actually _like _the brown stuff, even though he hadn't had it in years for a very good reason. One sniff, and he remembered the rush of energy it gave him; one sip, and, barring the scalded tongue, he was very pleased he had decided to cave in just this once.

Mokuba was another matter.

"Our flight is soon, Mr. Kaiba. Goodbye, Mokuba," Roland said, all business-smiles. Sincere ones, unlike that French bitch that was always in his life. Maybe even like Mokuba, now that he was forced to admit something along those lines.

Maybe coffee was a good habit to take up again, he admitted inwardly as he stretched to leave the room.

~ X X X ~

3:10 PM, Friday, March 11, 2005

Tokyo, Japan

Stupid, stupid, stupid. _Why _are you doing this?

Her fingers ignored her thoughts which hounded her for something logical behind all of this. Truth be told, she couldn't break a promise to anyone. Usually that meant herself, and Pegasus hadn't even been a friend. Just a business partner. A wacko one. Problem? She was doing this anyway.

The mouse clicked once, twice, repeatedly. She glared vacantly at the screen, a maze of maps and graphs and those annoying ads they pay to have infiltrate the sidebars. An internal battle kept on distracting her from she was actually doing in the real world. Smart idea or not, it was happening, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Not even herself.

The last one. The last share.

_Click_.

It was hers. It was done.

Noelle Hermand sat back then, exhaling a large puff of air and sitting back in her chair as she reveled in the fact of what she had just accomplished. The consequences would be enormous. The repercussions. The come-back-to-bite-yous. Call them what you wish. It was probably the most immature, rash thing she had ever attempted, and on the basis of some crank call, no less.

There was no more Industrial Illusions.

Her company – well, the company she worked for – now owned Industrial Illusions. The entire Duel Monsters card game stock. The single toil of one man who hadn't been able to say no to any of his hair-brained caprices to keep hold of his power. A bit like that one guy… what was his name? He was dead now. Oh, yes.

Gozaburo Kaiba.

Kaiba – the living one - would be thrilled when he heard the news of what she had just accomplished, if one could call simple button-pressing anything worth commending, but she hadn't done it for _him._ The reasoning was some crackpot subset of honor or purity or some other value like that that was supposed to be important to her – a staunch Catholic, after all. But now, her human self seemed to be lost in some twisted battle of morals and religion didn't have the least bit to do with it. Right now, anyway.

_Was_ what she just did moral? Sure, it was _legal_; no law stopped the economic principle of competition. The question instead became one of 'could she live with herself now?' Hell, how could she have even lived for the past nigh on thirty years? By hope and luck and hard work. For all intents and purposes, for whatever record was watching, she had bought Industrial Illusions for the greater good. Pegasus had told her to do so; Kaiba would be ecstatic; her peers would shower her with praises on her strategic insights; everyone would be happy.

Maybe.

She hadn't heard anything from Pegasus since that eerie phone call. Possibly that really hadn't been him talking. Oh, it was his voice, surely, but the strain in his voice made her think of some kind of over-the-top kidnapping scheme. Was Pegasus okay? Maybe he hadn't really wanted to say what he told her; he had been forced to by some thugs with piloting skills.

Or maybe _Pegasus _was the evil mastermind, and her innocent attempt to obey his command would wreak havoc on any number of people.

Maybe buying IIC was _not _what she should have done.

Maybe she had done wrong. Again.

Her fingers played like writing earthworms with the lowest part of her hair, darkened to chocolate where the window-light did not pour in from behind, and it was there that she came to a final, very real, conclusion. Stunning in clarity, really.

Of _course _she had been right. She was asking herself the wrong question for the past fifteen minutes. It wasn't about Pegasus at all, was it?

No, it was about _her_. She was having a breakdown.

With that resolved, there was one thing she _could _do. If she couldn't stop herself now, who knows how far this could possibly go.

First, she forced herself to admit that she hated her job. Being forced to work behind other company's backs, just to expand funds and influence like a balloon that wouldn't pop, at first was okay to her. Now that everything had happened, though, she saw through herself, to the blackness that must have been driving her before she had realized that _one_ simple little fact that changed the way she looked at positively everything nowadays.

How much was thirty days? She counted, not bothering to use a calendar. Thirty days was around three weeks; eleven and twenty-one make… ha, what do you know. _Poisson d'avril_.

He might not even take her seriously, then.

Claw-like, her pale hand reached out for her office phone, and she lifted it to her ear, like she always had.

"I'm resigning my post," Noelle said, calmly, not bothering to let her secretary speak once she registered that the other line had clicked on. "Effective in thirty days. I'm… I'm sick of this." She hung up softly then, as if she weren't strained in the slightest.

Now she was free, essentially, give or take a month, to do one thing she had been hoping to do since that Christmas. That other job, that she should have done a _long _time ago, but that fate hadn't let her do.

With luck, until now. The call that morning helped.

The door to her dark little chamber opened, and for one of the last times, she was summoned out to take in a news report that one of her faithful desk-bound cronies had pulled up a file on. This one was recent, and it confirmed her fears.

5 o'clock.

Pegasus.

~ X X X ~

10:48 PM

Late at night, a charcoal-black Toyota Century was working its way homeward to the Kaiba mansion, en route from the airport.

The television installed into the back of the front seat was turned on and tuned to one the numerous news stations, but Kaiba, sitting in a position where he could watch it, was truthfully paying it little mind, as he was still somewhat focused on his work. He half-listened so he could pick up on things, but there were emails to be completed via his phone, and because lackeys were lackeys, they could be trusted to perpetually give him something to do at the most inopportune or unwelcome of times. So the TV kept on blaring.

About halfway through the list, a news snippet nagged at his attention, but all that really registered was that it would be broadcast at eleven, and was a re-broadcast of something that had been shown earlier that day.

Earlier that day… it seemed like just that distance since Kaiba had finally relented to 'release' Mokuba, as it were, to let him live. He hated to admit it but Mokuba was just as legal as he was now, and he was taking care of him when he was Mokuba's age, so technically, and thus logically, Mokuba could take care of himself. It was a decision best made without any sort of emotion involved, although Kaiba still felt a nagging pain, as he did now, whenever he thought of it.

"Now for our live coverage," began the TV suddenly. Kaiba looked up from his email, feeling the pain in his upper back and neck from being hunched over for too long, but recognizing what seemed to be a courtroom for someone or something. Whatever channel this was thought this trial was important. Probably nobody. But then the next words came.

"And here is the accused, Maximilian Pegasus, entering the room now…"

Kaiba breathed in sharply as a shell of a man, handcuffed, white hair turned gray, entered the room. It fell practically to his back now, and he even sported a moustache. One of his arms was in a sling for some reason, as well. Pegasus' eyes never met the camera as he took his seat on his side of the room. Swiftly following, the trial began.

Custody had apparently not been kind to his old business partner.

Kaiba thought more about repercussions of the events that had recently played out, rather than listen to the charges, though there were many – most American laws he might have known at some point under Gozaburo_don'tthinkaboutthat_in his childhood but now he was only familiar with Japanese law. So _tax evasion _and _bribery _and _misdemeanor _floated around the backseat, but nothing really stuck.

Pegasus was gone, and Industrial Illusions was on its own.

He began listening attentively once Pegasus actually began to present his case. His voice was low and gravely, as if he had been smoking. He explained how he wouldn't deny the charges – they were all true. He had manipulated the money supply of the company for years, and in trying to evade taxes – most specifically, the Sarbanes-Oxley act – by escaping to burdenless Bermuda, he had been caught red-handed. Pegasus also agreed that his arm was in a sling because the Bermudan police had burst down the door, Pegasus had dropped his gun, and it had gone off as it fell, shooting him in the arm.

Kaiba's face was contorted; but what it had become was uncertain. He always would have called Pegasus a dirty, rotten snake, ruthless to the bottom of his rotten core, but it was different now that it was official, and the consequences were being doled out in turn. It almost made him reminisce. Before he could further, though, his damn cell phone rang.

_Of. Course._

"What," Kaiba said in his customary tone as he moved to silence the screen.

"Good evening," said a motherly voice dripping with insincerity he knew all too well. "I trust you're in Japan now?"

"Hermand, how did you know I even left?"

"You usually answer your phone."

"That's not quite true."

She sighed on the other end of the line, and apparently quite close to the receiver as the line bristled with rough static. Almost… defeated.

"I have something to tell you. I trust you haven't heard yet."

"What now?"

"It has to do with Pegasus. He- "

"I just got briefed on that," Kaiba cut her off curtly, and rubbed one of his eyes. He definitely had to sleep tonight; things were too far over the edge.

"You don't understand," Hermand pressed, sounding equally exhausted now that she tried to assert herself more formally. "I was going to tell you how that affects our business relationship, with him out of the picture."

"Hm?"

"I remember the first time we met you were concerned about any business plans that could harm KaibaCorp that we had made. I'm calling to tell you about them."

Kaiba suddenly sat up straight, intrigued and highly suspicious. Why the hell would _anyone _freely admit to something like this? Sure, Pegasus wasn't around, but his company still was, right?

Right?

"We were indeed agreeing on considering a joint venture against KaibaCorp. We've known each other for a long time, see… and now with these actions that he has done I've been informed… well… Industrial Illusions is no longer your problem. You're free to become the new creator of Duel Monsters, Mr. Kaiba."

"What do you mean? Isn't it still around?"

"No, Kaiba," she said, in a tone that seemed strangely cold yet warm against his ear. "I bought his company today. I am, in essence, offering you parts of his old company."

The phone shrank away from Kaiba, and his mouth was hanging open just a little bit. His thumb put her on speaker.

_What the …?_

"You… mean to tell me…"

"Your reaction seems quite a bit more grave than when Ziegfried notified you that we bought them out," Hermand said crispily, her voice now filling the backseat of the limousine. "I know it's late, but we need to arrange a meeting to finalize all of this. I am also supposed to let you know it will be our last; afterwards, I am resigning from my post."

Kaiba was slapped in the face at this point. He couldn't stop rubbing his eyes. Luckily, he wasn't the one driving, but… this was like a dream come true at the perfectly wrong time.

"…I see," Kaiba eventually managed.

"Well, you seem exhausted, Mr. Kaiba. Good night."

"Wait! I have a few questions for you."

The other line was silent for a few moments; then, there was a sigh, as if the woman was readying herself to speak more to the paparazzi than a business partner.

"First of all, how do you _really _know I left the country? Second of all, how do you ever know that Ziegfried von Schroeder ever wrote to me with anything concerning you?"

"I have my sources, Mr. Kaiba," she said in her honey-tinted work voice, as usual not giving out any sort of usable response. "They might be closer than you think."

_I totally don't need this right now._

"See you soon," came the voice in the phone, and then there was a deadpan monotone signaling the end of the call.

For the first time in a long while, Kaiba found his throat feeling as if it were coated with tar, and the cabin reeking of cigar smoke like it had when it had shuttled his adoptive father around. There was definitely something wrong with this picture…

~ X X X ~

9:06 AM that day

Tokyo, Japan

Noelle walked in to her office, shivering a tad from the cold, and closed the door irresolutely behind her. There was a nasty task ahead that day, and her lips were clamped shut from a mixture of the frost and the anticipation. She had barely taken two steps when the phone rang.

"If it's important, they'll call back," she muttered to herself in French.

Only two minutes later, the phone rang again. This time Noelle answered it.

"Mrs. Hermand?"

She didn't recognize the voice on the other side of the line. It was nearly adult, but there was a slightly juvenile nasal twang to it.

"Yes, may I ask who is speaking?"

"Oh, I'm Mokuba Kaiba. Seto's younger brother."

Noelle's eyes widened slightly, and she took several seconds before responding, in a rather hostile voice.

"Yes… _mister_ Kaiba. I'm afraid I'm at work right now."

"I know that. There's something I wanted to confirm with you. It's been bugging me recently, and I think only you would- "

"Only _I _would? Hell, kid, you don't even know me. How do you have my number?"

"Umm, my brother's Seto Kaiba."

"I know that." Short. Vicious.

"And I'm not a kid."

Noelle rolled her eyes, cursing herself. Out of all the people she had to hear from today…

"Well… listen… here's what I was thinking…"

…

After several minutes of beating around the bush Mokuba finally coughed up his hypothesis. He told her everything, from his first suspicions to now (however, he left out his own kidnapping; at any rate she surely heard about it.) Surprisingly it matched up quite well with Noelle's own. She was quite shell-shocked.

"And you're… okay with accepting that?" she told him, still a bit non-believing.

"I called you because… well, you know why now," he replied, his voice quieter now, as if she were going to tell him she was kidding and then further admonish him. "I want you to go. You need to be there. He needs to know."

"I… suppose. I don't even know them, though."

"Oh, I can tell them, it's alright," Mokuba said, gaily, finally convinced of her fidelity. "Thanks for your time. I'm pretty excited now. This is going to be tons of fun."

"Where's your brother now?"  
Silence.

"He… just left here. California."

"No _wonder _I can't reach him. He's coming back right now, right?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, good. You're alright, right?"

"… Yeah. I'm good. Thanks."

Noelle disconnected instead of continuing the conversation.

How curious. Would she have time? Quickly she booted up her laptop and, after waiting for it to come to life, checked the calendar linked to the time in the bottom-right hand corner of her screen. Three months away yet? She could do that.

She pushed the plan to the back of her mind, rattling her mousy curls a bit, and further tried to force herself to think about Pegasus.

* * *

I just realized most of my time differences are off. I'll fix it eventually. Why did I never actually think about those before? Truth be told, more than likely, I'll probably re-write the entire thing once I'm done with this. Consider the story a rough draft. Yeah, that' it. Go with that. *cough*

Anyway, no, Pegasus didn't die, if that's what you're wondering from the last chapter. He did shoot himself though, because he's just that deft when he's mentally unstable.

P.S. I thought of an alternate ending the other day too. Yay for character death! (Did I just say that? Whoops! ;) )


	12. Chapter 12

I'm proud I got a chappy of this fic done. Originally, my plan was to end the book with this chapter, but instead, I just made a cliffhanger. I'm such a deviant. I even have an epilogue and alternate epilogue planned for this... so it'll be longer still. Oh well. Life happens when you make other plans. ;)

Sorry if this isn't up to part with everything else... week before final exams... grah. Hence why I'm proud I churned this out.

[BEGIN SAPPINESS] By the way, I've decided this entire fic is basically a rough draft of where I want it to be - my writing has a long way to go before it's up to speed with the other amazing writers on the site, and I think that's an age issue. Whenever this is finished, you can bet I'll come back and re-write the story once my style has improved. Just writing "Trebuchet" has shown me many weaknesses (and strengths, I suppose), which can be ironed out only with practice. [END SAPPINESS]

Yu-Gi-Oh! is not mine, but instead property of Kazuki Takahashi.

* * *

Chapter 12

11:11 AM, Sunday, April 17, 2005

Japan

Seto and Mokuba arrived late to the wedding of Joey Wheeler and Mai Valentine. They also arrived separately: Kaiba simply by his customary limousine, and Mokuba directly from Narita airport.

The events that had transpired a few months ago had left Kaiba somewhat of a changed man. As he slid out into the sunshine from the center seat of his limousine, dressed in the customary tuxedo the situation required, he was thinking about Mokuba, and not about the event he was attending. He was no longer worried about him, however.

He realized it was almost like he didn't want to even see him here. The ache would be too much.

The wedding was taking place outside of Tokyo, technically, at some rural beach resort further up the coast that toted magnificent views off of its dazzling cliff-side location, or something similar to that. Slightly inconveniencing to Kaiba, but then again, this was two-thousand and five, so he wasn't completely incapacitated by a day where he wasn't the shadow of Nag haunting KaibaCorp, the garden of Kipling's British family.

Swallowing the events of the past few months had been difficult for Kaiba, but it soon became routine to no longer worry how his little brother was faring across the ocean, and whenever he would call him the welcome he received was, well, less than welcome. Emails, his next plan of action, had been fewer, seeing as his laptop was not of the entertainment sort. Eventually, Kaiba figured Mokuba had simply blocked his email address. The rift, silent, had stretched between them.

The place seemed dumpy on the outside, but to Kaiba, most places were dumpy on the outside, too, so he wasn't entirely repulsed. Apparently, according to the memo he had gotten, the wedding would be inside the hotel's chapel. The bride and groom of the day were going for the more traditional American-style wedding, a pretty popular trend recently, for some reason. Good for them. Whatever.

Yet Kaiba believed, somewhere deep inside of him, that it was possible to still have a relationship with Mokuba. Of course he could. He dared not think of it in case of the emotions it would stir. He raised him, right? They were brothers. That's what you did. So what if Mokuba was in some sort of hyper-angsty college phase now? Mokuba would come back to him, sometime, apologetic and accepting. And he would eventually come back to Mokuba, ready to forgive. Problem solved.

After all, wasn't Mokuba the reason he would even come to an event like this? Notwithstanding the potential interest he had shown Wheeler last year? He was only here, he surmised, because he wanted to meet him again. At the office, he had given no real explanation, and even his newer secretary found it against his custom to simply take leave on a whim, as he declaredly was doing.

As Seto reached to open the door, not really caring if he would no longer be able to see the _sakura _that encircled the yard of the hotel, it instead flew open in front of him, causing him to take a step back instinctively. Mokuba – indigo eyes wide, hair still cropped short, but wearing a mustard-colored suit which clashed oddly with him – stepped out.

In his hand was a pack of cigarettes; in the other, a cigarette he recently had extracted from it.

He barely looked at his brother as he flew by.

"Oh. Hey. Um…"

And with that, Mokuba continued on his way, with a demeanor partially panicked, partially sheepish, and entirely 'too-cool-for-you'.

_This is going to be an interesting day, _Kaiba thought, half-wishing he still had the authority – or the heart - to turn around and chastise Mokuba for his choices.

~ X X X ~

Mokuba had indeed panicked when he had seen his older brother, but it wasn't at all due to the fact Mokuba had taken up the habit of smoking. Nobody liked him for that anymore, anyway, since he started back in January or something. He was used to the scowls, the upturned noses, the silent disapproval.

He was in fact quite ecstatic. Mokuba had never told Seto to come to the wedding, and just supposed he would, astutely, that the mere suspicion Mokuba would attend would be enough to cause his brother to come calling also. Now his supposed suspicions were confirmed.

He finished running, and stopped to catch his breath, looking up. He was near the dumpster, behind the hotel, in view of the ocean. Magnificent.

But not as magnificent as his plan was.

A navy blue car, rather ordinary, sat parked awkwardly nearby, and a woman was inside, waiting. Its engine was still running, as though she were ready to bolt if anyone else should find her there. She looked up at Mokuba's approach, and her eyebrows raised, asking a question, when Mokuba raised his hand in greeting.

Mokuba held up his finger in indication of wait and rushed over. He struggled to catch his breath, wheezing just a tad, as she rolled down the window with some force. It was an old car.

"Are you Mokuba?"

"Yes."

"Where's your brother? Is he here yet?"

He hadn't told her Seto might not even make it.

"He's inside, but the wedding isn't going to start yet. It'll be a while."

She seemed annoyed at this.

"Oh."

"Well, do you want to get it over with now? Before it starts?"

A pause. Then-

"Yes, I think I would."

The engine grumbled as it slowed and died away. Noelle Hermand stepped out of the car.

~ X X X ~

The wedding wasn't due to start until noon, but many people were already there. The groom and bride weren't, obviously; they were probably in their rooms readying themselves with their friends, obsessing over having perfection for this wondrous day in their lives. Seto smirked awkwardly, his normal coping mechanism, and gazed into the chapel room as he sauntered towards it.

He flinched, but was of course not surprised to see, the high school geek squad over in one corner talking to each other and each other only. Everybody else was probably family of some sort that Kaiba couldn't possibly have recognized or known, and had no interest in trying to assign to a particular side. Most of them looked related to Mai. He suddenly felt very awkward standing there in his customary designer's overcoat, and silently cursed being six-foot-one.

He moved past hold, and began to faintly hear some preparatory background music; the Turkish march, by Beethoven. It tinkled in the tiny space, seemingly lost within the minute cracks in the ceiling. Wheeler and friends were _definitely _going western now.

Not finding a place to sit – and finding it equally probable that would be seen as uncustomary – he chose to stand. In a corner.

Just like usual.

Then a man walked towards him, eyes twinkling, and he was familiar. His doctor, from when he had the seizure.

Not just like usual.

_Something better make today worthwhile_, he thought to himself, somewhat sullenly, readying himself for another aggravating conversation.

~ X X X ~

Noelle was surprised to find Kaiba's little brother equally as tall as she was. That was her first impression when she began accompanying him back into the hotel.

The next one was that his suit seemed kind of odd, and that he was smoking as he walked.

She was entirely glad he was not her son. The fumes were overpowering. He did then hold open the back door for her, however, and, whispering thanks half-heartedly to the smug brat, ducked inside as if she might get beaten for doing so.

She straightened once she looked ahead, though. The back door was in view of the room where all the decorations were hung, and someone's unique coattails were peeking out into the hallway. They were shivering, as if their owners body was tapping his foot in irritation while making conversation.

All of a sudden, her own body began to shake. The nervousness. It was all going to happen. Right now. She would not have been the one to say this hotel - quaint, but by no standards permanently inhabitable – would be where one of the overarching problems in her life would be resolved. Irresolutely. She felt like taking in a refreshing whiff of the air, but decided not to due to the faintly detectable odor she could already sense, clinging all around her.

"You ready?" asked Mokuba, who had stayed by the door, as if trying to not be seen by anyone.

"… I must be. I have to, now," Noelle responded quietly. She balled her fists, in an attempt to stop the tremors, to no avail. How could anyone make her feel like this without it being…?

"Go."

The encouragement was like pressing a button on a toy monkey with cymbals: she began moving, robotically, high heels clattering noisily on tile flooring. She scrapped her idea of slipping in the room unnoticed, and decided just to confront him. Directly. Get it over with. Get herself over with.

Seto Kaiba would finally learn her secret. The one that hid itself for so long from both her and, more than likely, from him. Their relationship was no longer strictly business.

~ X X X ~

He heard what sounded like loud explosions coming from the hallway, and he allowed himself to be distracted by them, just so that Dr. Kujaku would shut up and leave him alone. Kaiba excused himself when Kujaku hushed and raised his eyebrows in concern, and, whipping around unceremoniously, he strode to the door.

Who he saw made his blood turn to ice. It was fucking Noelle Hermand. Here. Now. Why.

"What are you doing here?" he snapped at her. Her eyes, which had been trained to the floor, shot up suddenly, and she gave the impression of having wanted to sneak through the hallway without seeing him. She didn't seem like the same businesswoman he had known while she was in charge at Disney; she seemed more mousy, less pushy.

"Mr. Kaiba," she greeted, and her voice quavered. "Could I… speak to you?"

"Of course," he said, silently cursing himself for saying so after _just _leaving somebody else he found insufferable right now, and pointedly gestured inward, towards the center of the room he was only barely still in. "Be my guest."

Noelle hesitated, and cocked her head, as if trying to get him to leave the room.

"Neither of us want to be here," Kaiba said, and his mouth took off without his brain. "Once this wedding is over, I'm gone. I'm only here to speak to Mokuba, and- "

"I'm only here to speak to you," she admitted, and she blushed slightly.

Kaiba frowned, and he shrugged, as if readying himself for a verbal war. Instead, however, Noelle saw him spirit into the room, right into the middle of it, even. And then he glared at her with those cold, blue eyes, the same ones she happened to have. She was dragged in by them.

"…I…" she began, whispering, and she swallowed. Kaiba noticed, and he hissed sharply. "Don't try to come on to me now that we're no longer business partners. You can think of somewhere better than someone else's wedding, right?"

She smiled and she looked up at him. "No, no. It's just… I-"

"Excuse me," said a voice, and Kaiba could swear he could strangle someone. He dared glance at the intruder. It was Dr. Kujaku. Again. He had picked up a glass of champagne from an appetizer table he hadn't yet noticed, and was looking between Kaiba and Hermand, an amused expression on his face.

"I'm sorry," he said, and his tone was almost as if he were saying it for the umpteenth time. "It's just… ma'am… you look so much like him. You two, I mean, like each other…" He turned decidedly towards Hermand. "You could be his mother, even."

Kaiba growled deeply, and Kujaku backed off. Kaiba then turned back to Hermand, who was staring where Kujaku had been standing moments before. Her face had become more pale than normal. "You were saying?"

"Yes," Noelle told him.

Kaiba blinked.

"He's right," she pressed, tentatively. All of a sudden it came in a burst, rushed, but in his ear, so that nobody else could hear her.

"I… I've missed you, Seto. I've been looking for you… I don't know how long, and I never thought I'd ever see you again…"

Kaiba recoiled from the hot breath crackling in his ear, and swatted her advance, and began to turn away. Was everyone here so odd, in their own special way? What was Noelle even blabbering about? Not even worth his trouble.

"I am your mother," she called after him, and her voice broke. The buzzing of other conversations in the room quieted down. He froze, and turned back to look at her, an incredulous look on his face, as if he were staring down a lunatic. It was then replaced by his normal impassive shell; but his eyes kept probing her.

"No. You don't understand, Hermand. Whatever's gotten into you, know this: my mother is dead. She died giving birth to Mokuba."

Noelle stared straight at him, challenging him, and Kaiba could almost see what she might be trying to say in her delusion: they were similar people. But they were far too age-distant for a relationship, and besides, Kaiba had no desire for one with a foreign business partner. Or with anyone.

"I am your mother," she repeated, more calmly, more clearly. "And I can prove it."

"How?" His chest swelled, he could feel the blood pumping to his head. A challenge? "Alright, bitch," he thought. Bring it on.

"I know his name. Your father's."

"Do you now?" he mocked.

She glared at him, passion rolling off her as if she were issuing a fine mist of emotion into the room. Everyone was mostly silent, save people setting down their plates of food or wiping their mouths with their napkins in anticipation.

"Well, tell me," Kaiba spat. "Whisper it to me."

As she approached him, gracefully, yet with a respectable fear, he began to smell fried eggs. Odd, how certain smells are connected to certain people.

She whispered a name in his ear.

_Tomas Cizek. _

A few stunned seconds later, his world collapsed. It collapsed even before he hit the ground.

* * *

Can you believe Noelle is Seto's mom? Is she, and there's much to be explored? Or no - she's delusional, and Seto blacked out due to the stress and pressure of this situation? (Wouldn't be the first time...) Who is _Tomas Cizek_, anyway? I feel so gloriously evil right now. I should probably stop. *Stops*


	13. Chapter 13  Part I

Many thanks to **Shock Howlett **for telling me to get over myself. :D

Anyway, here's Ch. 13 of "Trebuchet". This chapter is going to be split into two parts; Part I and Part II. (This is Part I, obviously). In between I'm planning on writing a first-person equivalent to a compact one-shot from the POV of Noelle Hermand explaining her connection to Kaiba.

Yu-Gi-Oh belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

* * *

Chapter 13

11: 49 AM, Sunday, April 17, 2005

Japan

Dr. Kujaku thought he might have seen something glimmer in the corner of his eye, but he ignored it quite on purpose. His face was still red, and though he tried to hide it, he was obviously quite upset. He wasn't used to being treated by anyone in such a rude manner as he just had been, previous patient or not.

He had tried to convince himself to calm down by taking food that had been set out and available; as he neared the table, however, the urge had come over him to simply take something off of the cheese platter and throw it brusquely in Kaiba's face. So instead, he paused, and reminded himself of where he was. A wedding. Involving a relative. He would not be the one to cause discord today.

Once the gasps had retreated, however, and he heard a harsh _thump! _on the floor, Kujaku finally turned around to see the commotion. There, in the middle of the room, where the asshole Kaiba had just been standing, there was no one but the woman that looked like him. Was she his mother? Possibly. Sister? Maybe. His eyes then trailed downwards and saw what looked like a billowing heap of overcoat tossed carelessly onto the floor. He then saw bony appendages sticking out of it, and he all of a sudden knew what had happened.

He ran towards Kaiba, and kneeled down too soon, causing him to skid somewhat on his knee like an American baseball player. His hand covered the man's forehead; it checked his pulse later. Nothing seemed to be extremely odd, perhaps a fever. His eyes, however , stayed eerily open.

"Seto-?" whimpered the woman, who was standing motionless above him.

"Wait, ma'am. This isn't over."

"What isn't over-?"

And almost on cue, Seto began to twitch. Barely, at first; but then his head rolled onto another cheek, and it was like shockwaves crashed through his body, and his legs and arms toppled one on top of the others, as if a child was trying to untangle a marionette above the stage. It was as if he were possessed. The other wedding-goers were staring, wide-mouthed, at what they were seeing happen, and who it was occurring to. He thought he might hear small sobs, and glanced up briefly. A brown-haired girl, surrounded by friends, was trying to restrain tears, much to some of her male acquaintance's combined annoyance and pity.

"It's the clonic phase," Kujaku muttered bitterly. The room was quiet enough to permit his words to travel throughout. "The second part of a tonic-clonic seizure. He's relapsing. Someone, quick, call a hospital."

Several women began rummaging in their purses, if they were close at hand; others dashed for them across the room. Kujaku looked back up at Noelle Hermand, who seemed dazed and relieved all at once.

"And you are - ?"

"Noelle Hermand. Former head of Disneyland Tokyo. I resigned a few months ago." She spoke rapidly and breathlessly.

"…Mrs. Hermand. What did you say to him?"

Choking noises came from her throat. She raised a hand to it, questioningly, and with a burst of effort, managed to say "… his name. Only… his name."

Kujaku squinted at her. He then looked over across the room to his own wife, who was, like all the other guests, slack-jawed.

"Kimiko. I'm going to have to leave to take care of Mr. Kaiba."

The woman swallowed, but she nodded stiffly.

Kujaku then stood, and lightly grasped Noelle's wrist.

"Ma'am, I'd personally like you to answer some questions and accompany me to the hospital with Mr. Kaiba?"

"… Yes, of course."

The two then began to move out of the room. Kujaku braced Noelle, as she seemed rather light-headed. As soon as they had passed over the threshold, the room erupted into chaos. A young man with an oddly-colored suit streaked by, asking rather petulantly what the reaction of his _nii-sama _had been.

Then there was an agonizing "What!"

Fifteen minutes later, the bride and groom were finally ready. People had collected themselves; the group of young friends that had accompanied the brunette had made their leave to console her as she tried to recover in the fresh air. Everyone was pretending like nothing happened, just for their sake. Right as the ceremony was due to begin, the group took their seats once more.

It was as if nothing had happened.

Neither Joey Wheeler nor Mai Wheeler, née Kujaku, would know about the altercation until several days later.

X ~ X ~ X

12:30 PM

The hospital reeked of rubbing alcohol. Usually there would be something on the walls to enliven the white dredgery of it all; but here, that was all that could possibly comfort her. She sat, head bowed, outside his room, feet crossed, neither crying nor thinking. Just sort of sitting there. Guilt couldn't describe it accurately.

Seto had been inside for only the expanse of ten minutes, but Noelle was no expert in the realm of medicine. Asking her to be calm, or to cheer up, when Seto wasn't critically ill but was simply prone to seizures when emotionally stressed – like various employees of the place had already tried to do – was essentially for naught. She was quintessentially inconsolable.

Mokuba, on the other hand, seemed to have been more convincible. But he had retreated in to be next to his brother some time ago. It made Noelle feel slighted, just a tad. What must Mokuba think now? Hell, what must have _Seto _thought for such a violent reaction? "Emotional overdrive"? _Mais non. Cela c'est impossible_. All she did was tell the truth!

There was a knock from inside the room, and Kujaku stepped out, sweating a little at the temples. He saw her and smiled briefly, but it didn't reach his eyes. He bade her stand; with little resistance, Noelle complied, too lost in… her lack of thoughts?... to vehemently refuse.

He took her arm, and leaned in closer to her.

"Tell me what happened."

She shook her head. _Non. Je ne dirai personne au dehors de mon fils_.

He sighed, and sat back down, dragging her back with him. He tried the question again. Once more, her brain came up with a thought in her native tongue. She was too tired to try Japanese.

Now, the doctor rephrased his inquiry.

"… Seto is awake. He doesn't believe you."

Noelle made little reaction; if anything, after all the commotion less than an hour beforehand, this was what she had been expecting. Rejection.

"But he wants to hear… how you know his father."

Finally, the clouds swirling around her began to back off, and for the first time that day, she looked at Dr. Kujaku straight in the eye.

"I'm sorry you're here. You should be at the wedding…"

"Please. Talk to him. Nobody is supposed to know that name. What was it again? Tom… Tomas… _Kiseki_?"

Noelle almost smiled at his mistake.

"Cizek. Not Kiseki. Cizek. It's Slovak."

"He was?"

She swallowed, hard, and tried to stand. Instead, she almost fell over again, but she threw out her writing hand to support herself, and it rammed against the wall. She gasped in pain, but quickly convinced Kujaku that she was alright.

"So… was he? How did you meet him?"

Her eyes closed, and her left hand nursed the right one. She exhaled briefly, her indication of a _no._

He sighed, scratched somewhere in his hair, and then rolled his shoulder in the direction of the door wherein brooded Seto Kaiba.

"He wants to know. If he is indeed what you claim him to be… your son…. then… he deserves to know your story. Right?"

Noelle straightened, and glared at him. But then, with grace, she conceded defeat, and reached for her non-ailing hand for the doorknob.

"Just remember – he's still mostly in the postictal state, a totally separate form of consciousness that copes with a recent seizure. Try not to upset him. Do you want me to- "

"No," she cut him off. "This is just for me. And for him."

"And Mokuba?"

She considered it as she turned the handle.

"Sure. He needs to know, too."

With that, she inhaled deeply, and hastened inside.

X ~ X ~ X

12:34 PM

The first words she managed to pick up were: "Oh, my _fucking _head!"

Almost as soon as she was inside, he began berating her, one of his willowy palm resting on his brow. It was funny because he hadn't entirely recovered, and Mokuba would do little to correct him, so it was like being scolded by a drunkard.

But it was her son who was drunk, so though she ignored him visibly, she still felt the impact his words had.

"Mrs. Hermand. You retire and go off the deep end. Where have I heard this before? Maybe Pegasus? Weren't you and Pegasus friends? Don't tell me you've joined the loony cabaret, too. Why can't I know anyone normal."

"Seto… you'll raise your blood pressure," Mokuba whispered, tightening his grip on his brother's hand.

"You seem concerned, Mokuba," Noelle told the boy, rather heartlessly.

The indigo coals bored into her. "Of course. You told my brother that my mother, who died in childbirth, can't be his."

"I never- "

"Hermand, we have brains. We know what you insinuate."

"You weren't even in the room, Mokuba."

"_Nii-sama _was."

"… I thought you were still mad at him," she said, simply.

"Insane business partners tend to tighten our family bonds," Mokuba enunciated, letting each consonant drip with acid, each vowel poison the blood.

Seto Kaiba coughed slightly, and grumbled something resembling a thanks.

"What's wrong with him still?"

"He's still on an IV drip. Once you leave" – Mokuba said this pointedly – "He needs to get an echocardiogram. This time is better than last time, though; he didn't wake up until they were nearly done with it the last time. He wasn't such a hassle."

She smiled, and it was the fake business smile, the one she used to wear every day, but now was reserved only for the brat sitting in front of her that was not her son.

"I heard that," Kaiba declared groggily.

"May I?" Noelle asked, ignoring the six-foot-one CEO trapped to his bed. She clawed at her mouse-brown hair, and her steel-blue eyes looked between the Kaiba brothers.

"Why are you asking me?" Mokuba muttered.

"Whatever," Kaiba said. After a brief silence, he continued, in a louder voice: "Who are you. Really. Who is my father. And, if you are my mother- " here he stopped, and donned an 'ah-ha' expression as if he believed he trumped her – "why did you give me a name like mine when you're French, not Japanese?"

Noelle took a seat on the foot of the bed, tentatively, as if afraid she might wrinkle a doily in that exact spot. Kaiba's large foot sat like a bump on a log behind her back, and for a second, she was afraid he might, in his chemically induced delirium, start hitting her or rubbing her with it.

"_Je peux répondre à tous ces questions_," she said in French. Her knuckles whitened; this was the moment. Right now. "And I will. I've waited… such a long time… to get this off of my chest."

Then, with the only noise being the ticking of the analog clock somewhere out of sight, her voice lifted, determination guided her, and she began her story.

* * *

This book should be finished by the end of Ch. 13, and after that, as I mentioned earlier, an epilogue (or two!) will be coming.


	14. Noelle's Story

Lots of people have wanted me to write this, and sadly, it isn't as good as it could be because a) I recently had hives in my hands and couldn't type anything and b) Now that I can sort of type again, I rushed to finish this due to demand. Probably shouldn't have. But this *is* it. If you don't know some of the French she's saying, there's never a better time than to use Google Translate.

Basically, this is a break in the main flow of the book for a quick one-shot sort of thing, in the perspective of Noelle speaking to Seto Kaiba.

Yugioh is property of Kazuki Takahashi

* * *

Noelle's Story

X ~ X ~ X

I was born on Christmas Day, 1958 – a true bundle of joy for my parents, Seymour and Caroline – in a small town outside of Strasbourg, France. That's my namesake. I had an older sister, Helene, and would soon have, after three years, a young brother, Auguste.

I was raised catholic. Many people now are simply signed up at such as the local _mairie _and that's all they really invest in the faith, but I was raised differently. I really believed. Many of the other children I would meet said that my family was strict, but I never thought so. If my father allowed me to have fun playing outside, that was what mattered to me. I loved nature; I never thought about business as a profession at all when I was a child. I also liked asking questions.

One day I looked into a brook and saw my reflection, and it occurred to me that people might think I was pretty. I looked a lot like my mother – mousy brown hair, angular jaw. But I got one feature from my dad: my azure eyes. I asked one of my classmates for verification when school started for me, in 1966. I got to know him, and then I asked him. His response? _T'es jolie, certes, mais jamais je voudrais te marier_. I wasn't marriable. Just pretty. Just a thing to look at. Just like nature.

I became determined to fight against his point of view of me. I wanted then to be the best; not because I had high dreams for later on in life, but because I wanted to prove him wrong. Prove everyone wrong, maybe. I studied as hard as I could, but I was never the perfect student. I received A's, surely, of course, but nothing above the ninety-fifth percentile.

I would eventually discover the one thing that attracted me more than any other in 1970. It wasn't biology, or chemistry, but instead, history. Greek classics, more exactly. I had heard them every night when I was very small; read them to myself when I became able. I had never, until that point, realized the effect they had on me. But when it struck me – what I wanted to do – I became more driven then ever.

My father was one of the few to support me. That was generally how it worked out in my household. My mother would smile, but fakely, and a smile I would grow to use myself, far in the future. My sisters would scoff, as they were wont to do. But my father's blue eyes twinkled alongside mine when I told him of the stories he had long forgotten. He was my inspiration. But I think that predisposed me to much trouble later on, once I entered the University of Strasbourg in 1977.

Everything, at that moment, was perfect. I had my faith; I knew God was beside me, there to protect me in any of my ventures. I had my family – well, my father. And I had my studies. The freshman year of college was spent entirely enthused in my work. I was not rude when people bothered me; but I was reclusive. I wanted to be more perfect. My hair had reddened and darkened, but nothing was in the way of my spirit.

My GPA was perfect. It excited me. I was even more excited when I was offered the opportunity to travel to the United States for my sophomore year – an extremely special privilege, not only due to my age but due to how difficult and rare it was to be able to travel at all. I was to stay until June 1980, and then renew my contract at the University. I chose to go somewhere steeped in history, where I knew even the architecture would be inspired by my chosen field. I chose the University of Virginia.

… I do not think that going to the University was a mistake. It began everything; it changed everything; these are true…. but I can't get ahead of myself. I arrived in Virginia, and things seemed to be going great. There was an intangible feeling, however. Nothing bothersome; but something nagging. Sometimes I would joke with myself that it was perhaps the construction, or the lack of adequate signs telling me where to go. None of those were really the case.

I hadn't the means to travel back home for the Christmas break that year. Instead, I stayed in Charlottesville, along with some of the other foreign exchange students. I wasn't housed with the foreign students; I barely knew any. I had never sought them out beforehand. But I found them overwhelmingly helpful, relaxing to be around, and more accepting of, amongst other things, my inability to speak English, which has thankfully since been remedied.

That's where I met him. That's when I met Tom. Tomas Cizek.

He was from the Czech Republic, he said, but he was actually Slovak; his parents, as well as he, had tried to move farther out of reach of the USSR without completely abandoning their different-minded family. He understood me; I understood him. Other people didn't understand 'us', though. We had clicked immediately. Tomas was apparently a popular person in the University's social circles; I had a reputation as a kind-hearted bookworm. The fact that we were together would make other people guffaw.

In retrospect, it couldn't have been love. Infatuation, maybe. Lust thrown into the mix somewhere… it could almost be considered a fling, now. It happened during that horrible snowstorm in Charlottesville, early in 1980. It was cold outside, so why not try and stay warm inside?

It wasn't until spring semester had begun that I knew he had made me pregnant.

… How could it have happened to me? I had never done anything wrong. I had only gone with my gut, my instincts. It was _une cauchemar_, a nightmare. I thought I was perfect, intelligent. I thought I never got out of line. _Comment est-ce que j'aurais pu être aussi stupide?_

It was an unusually warm day in March, 1980, when I decided to tell Tomas. It was the Friday before Spring Break. I know now I should have told him earlier; who waits until the last minute? At any rate, he comforted me, said he would stay by me. He then said he was going back to the Czech Republic to see his family over the break now that he was able. Not enough money back in December, he said. I fucking believed him.

School started again. Upon days of searching, and hours of inquiry, I learned he had graduated early. He had never told me.

Terrified. Outraged. Distraught. Betrayed. No word in any language conveys the amalgam of emotions I felt when I first learned that he had… had… I couldn't believe it. I was in shock. I tried to cope by simply falling into my study habits once more, but the fact that he had lied, promised his support and then left, never left me. My biggest concern was where I was going to have the baby – you, Seto. I didn't want to go back to France and face my family. I wanted to stay. I wanted to _never _go back. I wanted to shrink into the shadows and disappear entirely. I went from perfect to useless.

The University of Virginia thought otherwise, and, alongside the University of Strasbourg, extended my stay there an extra year. Now I was, as they say in English, between a rock and a hard place. I didn't like UVA. I didn't like France. _Que faire maintenant?_

In the school year 1980 – 1981, my grades began to slip. My body was young; it wasn't quite ready for the complications of being pregnant. I realize now that I was very depressed at the same time, also. I prayed that God could forgive me. I prayed that I could forgive me. I prayed for anything.

You were born October 25, 1980, Seto.

… Why did I choose to name you Seto? It's simple, actually. I wanted a name that, to me, was strong, yet unique. I decided to name you Seto, after the Ancient Greek word for wheat, _sitos_. It was the staple of their diet, and a symbol of how you would, from a motherly perspective, grown on to provide your family with all the necessities that they needed. Unlike your father. It fit in every possible way with my desired specifications. While you are now Japanese, you did once have a middle name. I never told you what it was. It was Olivier, a French name for the olive tree. The symbol of Athena. You were entirely under my control. My problem.

I must say, you were not the stoic baby people may believe you to be. You were loud, roudy, rambunctious, and demanding. I could even feed you cold milk, because you were too impatient to wait for me to heat it. You drained me. I couldn't focus on school anymore; nobody was really there to support me. My grades continued to plummet; by December, a year after I met your father, I was failing. The day I turned twenty-two, I was back in France, having bought a one-way ticket. I bargained my way into an apartment in northern Strasbourg. I didn't tell my family I was back.

At least, not then. The pressure built. I would think about them. What if they tried to call me, or send me messages or write letters, and the University of Virginia said that I had dropped out? What would they do? I couldn't let them figure it out. I was imperfect; I had to confess to that. In February 1981, I showed up on my parents' doorstep, you a babe in arms.

My brother Auguste was just beginning college. When I announced myself, and my little bundle of pleasure, he scrapped his idea to live at home and commute. He simply left. He didn't want to deal with the family tensions I would be bringing. I knew my mother and sister loved me; but they distrusted you. No. They hated you. The only person that really accepted me was my father. Like always. _Il m'a toujours compris_.

I rented the apartment above my parents', leaving the one I had lived in for the winter months. My first real job – not on the campus – was at a nearby restaurant, but only out of pity. You have to train to be a real waitress; I tried but I never achieved the license. I was too preoccupied with blaming myself. For being in France; for having a child; for being destroyed in the prime of my life. My one comfort? You – You became accustomed to the little food on the table. You were excitable, yes, but highly imaginative, and you shared by deep blue eyes, the one mark of my father's kindness. I had every expectation for you. Funnily, I remember thinking that you might prove intelligent one day, once you were old enough to start school.

I was looking forward to raising you.

In April 1984, however, that changed. It began with a letter in the mail. It was from New York state.

According to the letter, Tomas was pressing to take custody of you. The letter was from a lawyer of his, I remember; it claimed he was in a better financial situation, or something of the sort, although he must have apparently sent the letter supposing that I was a failure. That I couldn't get out.

I had failed that young boy, in the schoolyard. I was still the pretty girl, nice to look at, nice to sleep with, distasteful for marriage. He said he was engaged to a Japanese woman. Someone he truly loved. He wanted a family for his child. He didn't know your name. He didn't even know he had a son.

For some reason, however, I took his bait. Everything in that letter was serious. All of it was important, necessary. I believed what he said – that I couldn't love you, because I wasn't worth enough. After all these thoughts of how useless I had once been, I was back to caving in again. I didn't want to. I swear I never wanted to let you go, Seto. But… I was weak. So I did.

I thought after May, 1984, I would never see you again.

It was a mistake. I knew it almost as soon as you had left for… well, only you can tell me that part of your story now; it is here that our paths diverge. I wallowed in grief for months on end. I lost my job as a waitress because I simply could not control myself. After that I refused to leave my apartment; when my parents shoved me back into their own, I wouldn't come out of the room I was given back.

August, 1984, never was supposed to have come for me. A month previous, I had been irresolutely determined to kill myself. Why would anyone useless need to burden anyone else? I failed you. I failed your father. I failed my own father. What was left to win? But I failed at that, too. And they sent me to a psychotherapist.

… That changed my perspective back to what it had been years before, while I was still in high school and beginning college. He wouldn't say 'yes' to any of my excuses, and yet refused to think I was a failure. He proved to me there was only one way, now that everything could be placed behind me, that I could go. Up. I had to _do _something to make up for the fact I had lost my way down life's road; looking behind would only keep me further entrenched in the mud and tar that tends to cover up some parts of it. I had to move on. Change. Take vengeance.

I didn't cry when I said goodbye to my parents. My next stop was Paris, France, where I still couldn't find a job, and the rent was ridiculously high. I made fun of myself for thinking it. But that new thrill-seeker in me silenced the figure that had once been me. I decided to cheer myself up. My first post was as a menial street-sweeper in Disneyland Paris. It taught me hard work, physical labor, more than anything else I had done before. Yes, it was boring; gave little pay; and was looked down upon by everyone else, but I had to stay confident. I was at the bottom of my personal economic crisis. My fortunes had to rise.

My superiors quickly noticed me. The 'new recruit'. I began to climb, slowly, surely, inching my way up the corporate ladder. Living was all about achieving power now. The only thing I learned was how to fake my own happiness with an artificial smile. I forgot about my family, I forgot about my past. I forgot about you and your father. _C'etait un plaisir cruel. _

By 1990, I was working as a secretary in the corporate offices of the park. By 1995, I was (to my excitement) elected to the board, and I grew to become in charge of the relations between my park and the other Disney Parks worldwide. Then, Three years ago came my largest leap: leaving Paris so that I could lead the park in Tokyo, a complete stranger to the life and culture I would find here. I only had one distraction: my father… _avec ces yeux si brillants, bleus, et clairs_… died of a heart attack right when I wasn't looking, in 1999. I felt horrible with myself for missing his final moments, but by that point working had become a drug I had to have. Nothing was good enough for me anymore; I was plagued by the prospect of returning to the year 1981 once again.

… I never thought I would see you again, Seto. This past Christmas Eve answered the prayers I had had every Christmas eve for almost twenty years. It also confirmed to me, after hearing of your past, that Tomas must have died, the ungrateful bastard. I had regained my fortune, and I had regained my son, and in one of the most fantastic ways possible. I thought you looked familiar to me – the eyes, the hair – and when it all clicked… _ohh, c'etait fantastique. _And now… this business relationship we built earlier… it was always a crockery. It split us apart.

I want my son back; I can never take back my father. I want back all of my life's treasures, whenever they happened. Hell, I want my _life _back, and it rests mostly on _you._ I want my cake and to eat it too.

_Mais ce que je veux le plus, c'est que tu m'en croies._

_

* * *

_As for wondering if I have any relationship to Disney or the University of Virginia, the answer is no. I've been to both though (the Disney in Orlando, not in Paris.)_  
_


	15. Chapter 13 Part II

Well, _this _certainly isn't a week behind schedule. Coughcough.

It's the end of Trebuchet! Except for the epilogues. This has been in planning... for a long time. Anyway, I admit, I'm a new addict to some freeware known as Musescore, and that's been engulfing the time I should have spent trying to think this out better. Oh well. The ending's not supposed to warm the cockles of your heart; it's supposed to make a point. What that point is is up to interpretation, I guess.

I'll thank all the reviewers in the epilogue[s], as I did for Target.

... P.S... it's about _time_ I finished a fanfiction of my _own_! :D

... P.P.S. I'll just go ahead and dedicate this fic to both Kaiba (born 10-25) and Joey (born 01-25), seeing how this story fits in nicely between their two 30th birthdays, at least in my world. So yeah.

* * *

Chapter 13, Part II

X ~ X ~ X

She looked up expectantly, her face beet red, and did not move. It was almost as if she was listening to the remnants of her voice fading as echoes around the room.

Seto Kaiba, still under the effects of the medicine easing him out of his seizure, looked as if he could have another one. His face, unlike his mother's, was pale, and his blue eyes were wide and somewhat vacant. At the very least, he seemed to have understood what she had said.

Mokuba Kaiba was incredulous, skeptical, and completely captivated.

"Well." Noelle broke the silence, crossing her willowy hands and daring to look at her son for the first time. Seto did not know whether she saw him, her son, or her father as she held her gaze. He didn't know what to think at all. Everything had sort of stopped. Not in the 'ah-ha' kind of way. His mind was vacant; he was quite speechless.

Did she know how hard it was to do that?

"Do you?" she asked, rather timidly. "_Do _you believe me?"

Mokuba coughed his approval, though the question had not been addressed to him. At the instant he did so, however, his eyebrows contorted, as if he suddenly realized something. He then whirled to look at Seto, and very slowly, took a step backwards.

Seto tried to clear his throat, but nothing coherent occurred, so he simply answered.

"Yes," Seto admitted. "There's nothing in your story that doesn't somehow make sense."

Mokuba looked again at his brother, aghast.

"Your story… it fits. I don't really remember that far back… but what I do remember… it seems to work."

Noelle smiled at him, overwhelmingly relieved, and went to ruffle her hair, as if to shake all the nervousness out of it.

"You knew," Mokuba muttered, accusingly, but inoffensively. Seto turned to look at his brother; he had never really considered it before, but it had to be true at this point. Mokuba… the one person he had only really ever cared about.

Was. Not. His. Brother.

"You knew!" Mokuba then shouted, violet eyes flaming, voice betraying the fact he had been smoking a tad too well. "You knew… that I never was related to you!"

"You're his half-brother, Mokuba, you're not strangers," Noelle cut in, unusually cold.

Mokuba froze, and turned to look at her. All at once he exploded.

"It's _your _fault! You did this intentionally! You're making it worse! God _damn _it, why would I have ever helped you if I knew this was your only plan!"

Noelle seemed to shudder at the insults, but she was smiling, eyes closed, in a way that struck Kaiba as intentionally psychopathic. Between Mokuba's expression and Noelle's, Seto immediately understood that they had been planning something earlier.

"What's the meaning of this?" he asked.

"You see - " Noelle began.

"THIS BITCH TRICKED ME INTO INVITING HER TO THE WEDDING!" Mokuba roared, finger pointing at her in accusation. "And she won, too! You're just giving me up now!"

"What - ?" started Kaiba. "No, Mokuba, I would never-"

"Of course not, no," Noelle intervened again, but she had played her falsetto smile on him once again. "I'm not trying to _shove _into your family, I'm showing you I've always been there!"

There was a pause. Mokuba looked between Noelle – who was gazing downwards with a mixture of shame, timidity, and – was it triumph? – and who he had always thought was his pure and only brother, the one he wanted _independence_ from, yes, but never the one he wanted to be completely severed from, in the deepest of the levels of his heart. He seemed lost – not confused, but torn, as if trying madly to concoct a counterargument to both of them at once.

"Screw this!" Mokuba spat, straightening to his full height, eyes venomously darting between the pair. "Seto, have fun with your _mom_. I'm done. This is over. Whatever we had, it's over. Okay? Are you happy now?"

The door slammed, and only then did Kaiba know Mokuba had been making his way to the hallway the entire time he was belting out his tirade. He then shifted his head to take in his parent – as she was more than likely so, at this rate – and glared at her.

"What did you do?" Kaiba hissed.

"Mokuba and I had made an agreement," Noelle told him. "A business plan, if you will, but more… intimate, as you now know. I wanted to tell you… and I know you loved him… so…"

"You _used _him?" Kaiba's voice had darkened, and no amount of whatever drug they were pumping in to him could prevent him from connecting all of the dots. "You _used _him to talk to me, and now…" Kaiba paused, grappling for the word. "I guess you could call us estranged now."

"I'm sorry, honey," Noelle whispered, and at the term of endearment, said with lips curling upwards and an expression filled with compassion and yet with smugness, he, too, snapped.

"You know, Noelle," he murmured – being careful to not return the affection she apparently thought of him – "What did you ever do for me?"

The question seemed to place her off guard, and she began to babble. "I just told you, Seto, I gave birth to you, I raised you as best as I could, I – "

"What part of me do you see yourself in?" he continued aggressively.

"I… well, lots of things- "

"Name three."

"Th-three? Well, they're obvious, I mean, well, um, first, there's um, you know- "

Kaiba moved his own willowy hand out from underneath the sheets, and held it up, hushing her. He then spoke slowly, as if every word needed to be enunciated. And they did.

"You never did anything for me. You are nothing like me. You expect me to abandon Mokuba for you at the drop of a dime. Did you learn _anything _from doing business with me?"

Her smile faltered, but only slightly. This told him that she was still wearing that fake business grin. The one she never could take off, apparently since her sniveling little childhood back in whatever part of France she had said she came from.

"That is business, dear. People are different once you _know _them."

"FUCK YOU!" Kaiba shouted, getting red-faced now. "My LIFE is PUBLIC! I am NOTHING but what I DO! Do you know why? I suppose you wouldn't. Let me tell you. EVERYTHING I DO, and EVERYTHING I have ever DONE, and you can bet your skinny ass everything that I will EVER DO, is for MY BROTHER, and NOT for someone I thought was DEAD!"

"But I'm _not _dead!" Noelle retorted, standing as if she could hide the fact she was beginning to shiver once more. "I lived my life waiting to find you again. You're everything I have left- "

"MOKUBA IS EVERYTHING TO ME!"

"But _he doesn't like you anymore_!"

"YOU THINK I CARE?" Seto was screeching now, almost fighting to sit up completely if not stand; he felt several negative thoughts towards the IVs that were severely limiting his hands' ability to strangle. "YOU THINK YOU CAN WALTZ IN AND TAKE OVER?"

"NO!" Noelle was shouting back now. "That's _never _what I thought! I want you to know I love you, and that I'm here, and I'm doing everything I can for you- "

"WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU WHEN I WAS LIVING WITH GOZABURO? WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU WHEN I WAS AT THE _ORPHANAGE? _FUCKING NOWHERE!"

"I am now, Seto!"

"DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO THE FUCK GOZABURO IS?"

There was a stunned silence. Noelle looked hurt and thunderstruck. Footsteps – loud – in the hall, and muffled voices. Noelle, who had been glaring just as intently as Seto had until that moment, seemed to break. She bowed her head. He did not care to wonder whether there were tears dripping downwards.

No. No, she didn't.

All at once the door flew open and a squadron of doctors flew in, crowding around the beeping machines surrounding Seto Kaiba and admonishing the woman that had caused his blood pressure to spike _so high._ And in the flood of white coats, she seemed to vanish, like a sprite, to be just a memory somewhere in the back of his mind, just as she had always been.

Then the medicine they must have just shot into him kicked in, and once more, the world spun into nothingness.

X ~ X ~ X

Usually, Kaiba dreamt only rarely. As he had come to learn over the past several months, usually they were odd, and yet somehow symbolic as to his greater life. This time, though, there was no dream: it was simply him. In his mind. Alone.

But this time, although there were no over-active faucets or scattered shards of glass, there was a memory: as if the time he was in the vast vacuum of his drugged-out psyche _should _be spent with a dream, one that he had already had.

What _was _it? What _was _it?

X ~ X ~ X

Friday, May 6, 2005, 8:40 AM

Tokyo, Japan

It was a normal day – there was nothing to distinguish it from any other in any particular way. Seto Kaiba was already at work; like normal. He had already fished through his email looking for something pertinent to concern himself with, to no avail; like normal. Yoorii had brought him coffee, too – while it had been against his custom while he and Mokuba spoke, now it seemed almost a necessity. It didn't awaken him; it was just a custom. It made him remember, but without the pain.

It made him remember that seventeen years ago he was adopted and everything stemming from his one promise to his little brother blew out of proportion. But it had never gone out of his control. Not once. Not even now, perhaps.

The media had jumped all over the story about Max Pegasus being incarcerated almost as much as they had loved seeing him want to flee the United States, even here in Japan. Kaiba almost felt like thanking the bastard, as the media had never quite picked up on the family feud that had past a little less than a month ago. He hadn't seen Noelle or Mokuba since; both had dropped off the face of the planet.

Not entirely. Mokuba still had e-mail, and Kaiba had a hunch Mokuba read it. Teenage pride, perhaps, was keeping the two from bonding again. Kaiba had his arms open, just waiting. Waiting to be taken away from the workload that he had given himself, just for his brother's sake. Not for his own. Screw the business world; screw the people that were in it.

It sounded deplorable, and yet: screw his mom.

Kaiba had searched viciously for the official birth records of a Seto Hermand in Virginia around the time and date and had not been surprised – although the feeling he _had _experienced was not at all pleasant – when positive results returned after a bit of perseverance. It was official: Kaiba was, at least officially, not a Japanese but an American, and a Frenchman: everything he had studied to be, he already had been. The irony.

In his heart of hearts, though – the one some liked to call "Seto", in counterpoint to "Kaiba" – he _was_ Kaiba. While Seto may have had the connection back to the sleazy outcast that his mother was, the person he had worked so hard to be – the person he _was_, damn it – had only one relation: Mokuba. Even if Mokuba would no longer admit it.

The entire situation was flawed, odd, comical – a broken love triangle, battered and beaten by time and happenstance as if thrust forcefully through a cheese grater. And as Kaiba stared that morning for the umpteenth time into his coffee – black, of course, just to buffer his reputation – he suddenly remembered it.

The dream he had during his last seizure.

He remembered being a chess piece – a pawn? a knight? a rook? – and he was playing against the opposing team. He couldn't remember being black or white; he couldn't remember it mattering. All he remembered was that Noelle Hermand was on the other side, and she was using desperate tactics.

The game was brutal. Pieces captured, positions moved, the invisible net of possible strategies broiling in a pot of brainstorming. And then it was down to the nitty-gritty, the make-it-or-break-it moment: would Kaiba's side sacrifice himself? Or would Hermand's? Either way, Kaiba knew, the person who made the critical move would have to lose. There was no other way.

He was in, as the experts deem it, Trébuchet.

Whomever was playing for his side, he had decided to sacrifice his game, just to save Seto's piece. Seto did not lose: he was just a pawn, a queen, or a king.

And towering above him, graciously grinning, was Mokuba, even in the jaws of defeat.

And Seto, blinking as he awakened from the reverie, knew, that situation was simply his mind's way of retelling where he was now. It was all so clear: Mokuba made the sacrifices. He made the sacrifices. Noelle did, too, but she never did them _for him_. Maybe she did. Maybe it was impossible to find an objective viewpoint on the entire situation. Kaiba loved to be objective.

But Kaiba was in Trébuchet, and the move had already been made.

Resolved, he picked up the small letter on his desk, with its pretty border and writing far too emboldened to suit it naturally. The umpteenth one from his mother. So many sacrifices, so many wrong turns.

It unceremoniously was stuffed in the trash can. And Seto Kaiba, none for the worse, went about his day, confident in the future, resolved about his past.

Just like normal.


	16. Epilogue

Official epilogue; the second epilogue isn't really an alternate, it's just a fun little post-epilogue thing I wrote because I'm sadistic. Take that as a hint. An obvious hint.

My thanks to: **TaintedApple**, **se-tar, FantasyGuardian, Melzart, **and **Demonkittee**, the quintet of people who noticed the story while it was in progress. And of course, if you haven't reviewed, please do. This is probably, in its entirety, a rough draft to a more polished version once I actually acquire that magnificently fleeting trait known as "skill".

* * *

Epilogue

X ~ X ~ X

Wednesday, October 26, 2005, 7:00 AM

Tokyo, Japan

Kaiba now knew what it felt like to be twenty-five years old and the chief executive officer of a massive company: it felt like he was still twenty-four years old and the chief executive officer of a massive company. Birthdays didn't really mean anything to him. Especially his own.

Mokuba's might have been an exception. That was the day when Mokuba finally started speaking to Seto again. Offering to step down as CEO for Mokuba might have been the trick, even though it didn't work. Kaiba was simply pleased Mokuba didn't reject him for trying to beg him into returning to Japan, even though that kind of _was _what he was doing.

Kaiba was seated his limo, reading the _shinbun_, more to keep informed than because he actually wanted to do so. Newspapers confused him; their layout was perhaps logical to some people, but to him, who did everything on the newest technologies, oddly folded pieces of paper were growing more and more passé.

Partly on a whim and partly because his secretary had beeped him with a request to flip through it, Kaiba stopped when he reached the obituaries. A quick glance revealed nothing interesting; lots of old people were dead. Nothing incredibly new. Nothing to concern him.

Then he read one obituary which puzzled him and made him feel strangely guilty.

He wondered why that particular person would have gone and killed themselves – according to the obituary, they had left no last will and/or testament, no motive, no real note. The writer, someone from the newspaper because the individual had no available relatives, left it an open question whether the date was significant.

Seto Kaiba had never publicly disclosed his birthday; as it didn't matter to him, he saw no reason why it should matter to anyone else, except perhaps Mokuba.

Yet Seto Kaiba understood that yes, this person had chosen to kill themselves, in grief presumably, on a date that was symbolic to them. And it made him uncomfortable. Almost regretful. Yes, he could admit that he was regretful, couldn't he? But it was alright now: Mokuba was back in his life, Pegasus and Hermand were not – hopefully permanently – and everything was back to the way it had been.

When he glided out of the limousine at the back entrance to the Kaiba Corporation, he lazily tried to throw the obituaries, now crumpled in a compact mess of paper and ink, into a garbage can; his lack of seriousness caused it to miss, and he strode inside, and no one really bothered to go and pick it up.

If anyone were to have opened that obituary that day, they might say, "oh, yeah, I think I remember her", once they saw Noelle Hermand's face gazing up, the odd one out amongst the senior citizens. But they wouldn't really know the reason why she ended up there; and eventually, the quirky coincidence from earlier-that-day would pass out of short-term memory. The only one who would remember her – both in life and in her attempt to provoke a heart-wrenching martyrdom – honestly couldn't care any less.

* * *

Kinda short eppy, but yeah, it didn't need to be very long.

As for future projects... **Appearances**, originally by Melzart, will continue to be updated, hopefully around once a week. I do have a few ideas I still have to sketch out before putting up here, but I suppose FINALLY getting around to thinking about **Through the Hourglass **wouldn't hurt. Of course, the actual final epilogue thingy to this will be up Sunday, Jan 30, 2011 (because this story started on October 30: 10/30... 01/30... err... yeah, I'll shut up.) As for my one-shot, **Come to Grips**, if you've read it, you can tell it's sort of a warm-up for what this story ended up becoming. I may take it down soon, but... gah, I dunno, YOU tell me.

I thought I said I was shutting up?

~ Mardigny


	17. Post Epilogue

THIS POST-EPILOGUE IS IN NO WAY TO BE CONSIDERED A CANON CONTINUATION OF 'TREBUCHET'. IT IS A SEPARATE IDEA I EARLIER SCRAPPED, BUT DECIDED TO WRITE FOR MY OWN AMUSEMENT. THE STORY ENDS AT THE END OF THE MAIN EPILOGUE. 

Thanks.

Yugioh is Kazuki Takahashi. I own nothing except the historical fact I wrote this story, and the fact that I knew some of the French used earlier on.

* * *

Post-Epilogue

X ~ X ~ X

Wednesday, October 26, 2005, 7:37 AM

Tokyo, Japan

There was a slight knock on the door, and then Yoori entered. He then placed the mug of coffee on the bookcase that was directly adjacent, and didn't bother to either look at Kaiba nor deliver the coffee directly to him. The door clicked shut just as quickly.

It was several minutes before Kaiba decided to retrieve the now cooling beverage: black, no sugar, no sweetener. Tough: It could put hair on your chest. Or if you were Kaiba, it just cemented your reputation.

The current project in hand was a finalization to the proposed expansion of KaibaCorp's second stretch overseas. The first 'round' – which had been implemented almost immediately that previous year, wherein KaibaCorp had spread into Germany to fulfill the void left by SchroederCorp and also into Richmond, Virginia, United States – had been so successful that this year, they were planning on other headquarters: China, maybe (that one was still iffy with the board); France; and Toronto, Canada. The last two were definite: they were happening. He just had to iron out a few last kinks. It was practically all he had to do today, other than sort through his email, deal with customer services, plan functions, manage the marketing department, streamline the budget, and everything else most people would rather poison themselves than do.

Kaiba made a few last clicks on his mousepad on the site where he had secretly been expecting a commission. His left hand now curled, bony, around the mug: he then drank deeply. It would be there later tonight, he knew: he had given directions for a 'special package' to be placed underneath one of his pillows. Odd orders, of course, but a man of mystery was not to be understood.

He remembered the one time where work was everything, and when Mokuba had been on the backburner, despite him being the root cause of all of his hard work, determination, and newfound power and wealth. Now, Mokuba was gone, and on the forefront of his mind: his eyes were glazing over just staring at the screen, only absentmindedly running the company. He shivered and remembered the weather outside. He didn't turn around to look.

Insetad, he remarked that now he needed coffee in the morning, a ritual he had previously despised seeing in other people. Hopefully, this would wake him up more. He could work without coffee, certainly, and nobody would say anything. But why settle for anything less?

Instead of clearing, the screen almost instantaneously got more blurry. Kaiba was suddenly struck by nausea; and he wondered if there was something in the coffee. He looked down: but there was nothing. It looked like coffee to him.

His hand dropped the mug of coffee, and it reached for the phone: he staggered to his feet. He swallowed, then immediately realized he shouldn't have done so. His mind was spinning. Act fast.

Yoori, outside, heard the incoming call from his boss' office. His eyebrows drew closer together, ever so slightly; and then he lightly picked up the receiver.

He did not answer it: instead, he laid it down on the desk and listened. There was a wheezing; then a crash as his boss dropped the phone and collapsed. Then he hung up, but he could still hear, ever so quietly, the dial tone still humming behind the closed door a few meters away.

. . .

When the police came on the scene, with a stretcher, two investigators, a swarm of journalists, and a crowd of pedestrians clogging traffic tens of stories below, Yoori had already imbibed some of the cadmium-laced coffee himself, and was dead in his chair. After entering the bureau of the most powerful man in Domino, still recovering from the death of family he never knew he had, they found him dead, too, sprawled behind his desk, looking more like a dead cockroach than a champion of anything.

At Yoori's apartment – several subway stops away – they found a note that he had written that morning. It read:

_Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands. _

_ - Anne Frank_

_ My boss had no parent. She appeared to show him the path he always should have known, and the ungrateful sonava bitch killed her. His own character – it was his own. It was monstrous. I knew this once I read the news and I made the connections. I feel like I have to do this. It wasn't what I signed up for. I'm willing to die for justice. _

. . .

Thursday, 27 October 2005

Mokuba was informed of the news. Everyone at the Kaiba mansion was informed of the news. Eventually, they all had to sort through Seto's belongings, and find what Mokuba wanted to keep. They didn't expect to find anything very sentimental, and especially not after the nonchalance Seto had kept after his mother made her transient appearance in his life. But underneath the bedroom pillow of the deceased, they found a special commissioned add on to the locket he had always worn. And it read:

_La chance cr__é__e les parents, mais un choix cr__é__e la famille_.

25 December 1958 – 25 October 2005

It was, the investigators assumed, an old twist on the old Jacques Delille quote. And the dates inscribed were the lifespan of the mother of the deceased. And between those two dates was a dash lived in mystery, to virtually anyone who might find it of interest, just as the fame-stroked life of her son had been.

They couldn't figure out, even after the case closed and the secretary was locked away, whether it meant he had accepted Noelle Hermand regretfully post-mortem, or whether it was a breast-bound promise to keep her away like an unruly spirit.

One solid thing they could figure, based on the KaibaCorp records as accessed later on 23 November 2005, was that Kaiba truly had had a poor taste in secretaries.

They all had a good laugh about that one.

* * *

~ X X X ~


End file.
